Ups size

[Meta358]

The psu i have in my pc is a 750w but pcpartpicker says i only really use 500-550w of that. So my question is for the ups i get what size should i get one for the 550w it uses or the maxi possible 750w. 

  My pc uses

I7 12700k

Artic liquid 2 240m aio

Msi mpg z690 edge ddr4

Rog strix 3070

Phanteks amp 750w gold

[OhioYJ]

What is your goal for the UPS? Likely you aren't going to be gaming on the UPS, and if you are fully loaded (max draw), you need to shut down quickly, as your run time is going to be very short on battery.  Also keep in mind, did you account for anything else you might plug into your UPS, monitor, other accessories? Those will add to power consumption.

 

Generally I would say get the largest UPS, nicest UPS you can afford with in reason. They are generally still cheap compared to what they are protecting. Even a true sine wave UPS that would be good for the 750 watt figure would be in the ~200-230 $USD range.

[mariushm]

The general rule is to get a ups with a VA rating of at least 1.5x the actual power consumption of your computer.

 

So if you estimate your computer will consume 500 watts when gaming, you'd want a UPS rated for 1.5x500 = 750VA otherwise the UPS may not be able to handle the amount of power consumed.

Also, the type of UPS matters ... you have  offline ups (cheapest) , line interactive (a bit more expensive)  , online (expensive, usually enterprise, in datacenters) 

 

Offline UPSes are slow, so if your computer consumes 500+ watts, it's possible that the UPS may take too much time to connect the batteries and start the internal inverter and produce 110v/230v and "ramp up"  to 500w the components want - computer power supplies are supposed to have capacitors big enough to last up to 16ms without input power, but a lot of power supplies in reality can only do 10-12ms, and some offline UPSes are known to need as much as 8ms+ to start up and produce power.

 

Last but not least, cheapest UPSes only have a single 12v lead-acid battery inside, which will typically be able to keep a pc consuming 500w for maybe 3-5 minutes.  If you get out of a game as soon as there's power failure, at around 50w idle power consumption you have maybe 15-20 minutes of runtime on the cheapest UPSes.

 

 

[Mick Naughty]

Get as big as you can afford. I got a 1500va and its only enough to give me enough time to shut down if I'm in the middle of gaming. Mainly like it for keeping power to my model and router so I can keep the internet up while the power is out.