Power monitoring PSUs, a fad that has passed?

[M.Laz]

I'm looking for a PSU for my new build and I was trying to look into a PSU that allows for power monitoring. After working with some server gear that can do something similar, I thought it might be interesting to look for something similar for my personal system. But it seems like there isn't much new out there that I can find. Was this really a gimmick that is dead now, or is it just that I'm not looking for the right thing? 

I want to do a bit more research on these before I pull the trigger on a PSU and this is one of the avenues I wanted to check into.

[jaslion]

It has always been a gimmick for consumer level stuff feel free to ignore it in your purchasing decisions and get a nice high end psu without a past gimmick.

[Skipple]

 Why not just grab one of these? 

 

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08ZD7YL54/

 

It gives you the same (if not more accurate information) and allows you to measure anything you plug in. Any device or computer of your choosing. Plus, you aren't paying out the nose for a feature you won't actually utilize more than a handful of times.

 

[Dogzilla07]

@M.Laz

You can still buy pretty high quality PSUs with power monitoring, any model from Thermaltake iRGB Plus Platinum/Titanium series.

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/search/?q=irgb+plus

 

https://geizhals.eu/?cat=gehps&xf=3314_2017~366_digitaler+Signalprozessor

 

U can also find the 750w version for ~160eur in europe, just from eastern countries like Hungary and similar.

 

Both Plat/Gold are also Tier A on the PSU Tier list.

[SorryBella]

3 minutes ago, Skipple said:

Why not just grab one of these?

Because they wont let you analyze per rail, but hoenstly speaking even that is just superfluous when youre not overclocking things.

[Skipple]

3 minutes ago, SorryClaire said:

Because they wont let you analyze per rail, but hoenstly speaking even that is just superfluous when youre not overclocking things.

Fair enough. If our goal is to dial in for overclocking purposes I can see the advantages of getting a per rail breakdown.

 

[BobVonBob]

As far as I'm aware only silly power supplies (1200+ watts) ever got this feature besides the AX860i and RMi series from Corsair, and they're out of production. It's neat, but I don't think it's ever been useful for anything. Maybe it could have been useful for hardcore-but-not-hardcore-enough-to-have-a-multimeter overclocking?

[Dogzilla07]

@BobVonBobThere's a 1000w/1050w(plat+gold), two 850w models(plat+gold) and one 750w model (gold) from Thermaltake, that I've linked above.

 

Here's all the iRGB digital monitoring PSUs (Just a more advanced filter/detailed data site compared to pcpartpicker), ignore that it's EU : https://geizhals.eu/?fs=irgb+plus&hloc=at&hloc=de&hloc=eu&hloc=pl&hloc=uk

 

the 750w was on a really nice Black Friday sale for $119 (Newegg) and $130 (Amazon), so @M.Lazif you do decide to buy this keep an eye out for another deal on some of these on Cyber Monday on the 29th in two days.

 

Additionally, if you don't mind waiting, Corsair will be releasing a refreshed HX and possibly HXi series, based on the same/similar platform as these:

 

 

[M.Laz]

14 hours ago, Dogzilla07 said:

@BobVonBobThere's a 1000w/1050w(plat+gold), two 850w models(plat+gold) and one 750w model (gold) from Thermaltake, that I've linked above.

 

Here's all the iRGB digital monitoring PSUs (Just a more advanced filter/detailed data site compared to pcpartpicker), ignore that it's EU : https://geizhals.eu/?fs=irgb+plus&hloc=at&hloc=de&hloc=eu&hloc=pl&hloc=uk

 

the 750w was on a really nice Black Friday sale for $119 (Newegg) and $130 (Amazon), so @M.Lazif you do decide to buy this keep an eye out for another deal on some of these on Cyber Monday on the 29th in two days.

 

Additionally, if you don't mind waiting, Corsair will be releasing a refreshed HX and possibly HXi series, based on the same/similar platform as these:

 

 

Thanks for the info, I'll do some hunting on Monday and see what I can find.

[M.Laz]

14 hours ago, BobVonBob said:

As far as I'm aware only silly power supplies (1200+ watts) ever got this feature besides the AX860i and RMi series from Corsair, and they're out of production. It's neat, but I don't think it's ever been useful for anything. Maybe it could have been useful for hardcore-but-not-hardcore-enough-to-have-a-multimeter overclocking?

One thing I liked on the servers that I saw a similar feature on is that it logged power over time without any additional test equipment connected to the system. 
So you could see the impact of changing or adding hardware like hard drives, PCIe cards, or even just running a different mix of workloads. Fans could even factor into that, but then, this was a server

As a consumer, I was thinking it could give me input on tweaks to make a system more efficient (funny because I've gone with an Intel 10th gen chip which are not the most efficient). Beyond that, it could give me some insight into my system usage and power bills.
If there is Linux software for them, then there might be some other possibilities when paired with a RasPi like more reliable data logging that doesn't impact the host. But I don't know if this is possible. 

[Elisis]

Any Corsair "i" series PSU has this functionality, i.e. RMi, HXi, AXi