ATX 3.0

[Tibby]

Would it be smart to get an ATX 3.0 PSU for the future graphic cards whether it be AMD or nvidia or just buy a new one at the time?

[RONOTHAN##]

If you're buying one now, the pricing is about the same so you might as well, but upgrading an existing PSU is kinda pointless if you don't have a card that uses it. 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

3 minutes ago, Tibby said:

Would it be smart to get an ATX 3.0 PSU for the future graphic cards whether it be AMD or nvidia or just buy a new one at the time?

Unless you're in the market for the upper tier GPUs that can spike enough to take down a PSU, there's not much of a point. If you're say waiting for the RTX 4060, I wouldn't bother with ATX 3.0 as a must. 

[Tibby]

Just now, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Unless you're in the market for the upper tier GPUs that can spike enough to take down a PSU, there's not much of a point. If you're say waiting for the RTX 4060, I wouldn't bother with ATX 3.0 as a must. 

Well I'm planning to build with a RX 6950XT or 6900XT but I'm just saying in a few years and If I want to upgrade to better one. Would there be a point in buying an ATX 3.0 for the future 

[Tibby]

3 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

If you're buying one now, the pricing is about the same so you might as well, but upgrading an existing PSU is kinda pointless if you don't have a card that uses it. 

Yea I'm buying all the parts within a week. The card I want to build with doesnt but I'm just thinking about the future of gpus and me upgrading in a few years or so

[RONOTHAN##]

Just now, Tibby said:

Yea I'm buying all the parts within a week. The card I want to build with doesnt but I'm just thinking about the future of gpus and me upgrading in a few years or so

We don't really know if the 12VHP connector will take off though, there is enough controversy surrounding it that I wouldn't be surprised if the 40 series was the last generation of cards that had it. It might stick around, in which case the extra $10 you'd spend on the PSU would be well worth it, or it might go the way of Betamax and HD DVD. I personally would spend the little bit extra, they are pretty similar in price and everything and it's not like it hurts having that connector, but don't be spending more than say $20 on it, especially considering how you can usually just buy an adapter cable for an existing PSU and be just fine. 

[Tibby]

5 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

We don't really know if the 12VHP connector will take off though, there is enough controversy surrounding it that I wouldn't be surprised if the 40 series was the last generation of cards that had it. It might stick around, in which case the extra $10 you'd spend on the PSU would be well worth it, or it might go the way of Betamax and HD DVD. I personally would spend the little bit extra, they are pretty similar in price and everything and it's not like it hurts having that connector, but don't be spending more than say $20 on it, especially considering how you can usually just buy an adapter cable for an existing PSU and be just fine. 

So what 1000w unit would you suggest?

 

[RONOTHAN##]

3 minutes ago, Tibby said:

So what 1000w unit would you suggest?

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/HXjBD3/thermaltake-toughpower-gf3-tt-premium-1000-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-ps-tpd-1000fnfagu-4

 

It's a solid PSU and it comes with the 12VHP connector, and is priced on par with similarly high end 1000W units. 

[Tibby]

23 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/HXjBD3/thermaltake-toughpower-gf3-tt-premium-1000-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-ps-tpd-1000fnfagu-4

 

It's a solid PSU and it comes with the 12VHP connector, and is priced on par with similarly high end 1000W units. 

what are your thoughts on https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/XBVmP6/corsair-hx1000i-2022-1000-w-80-platinum-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-cp-9020214-na

[RONOTHAN##]

18 minutes ago, Tibby said:

what are your thoughts on https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/XBVmP6/corsair-hx1000i-2022-1000-w-80-platinum-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-cp-9020214-na

Bit expensive. You can get the A1000G for a bit less, and it's also a really good PSU. 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/ZDt9TW/msi-a1000g-pcie5-1000-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-mpg-a1000g-pcie-5

[Tibby]

2 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Bit expensive. You can get the A1000G for a bit less, and it's also a really good PSU. 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/ZDt9TW/msi-a1000g-pcie5-1000-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-mpg-a1000g-pcie-5

Is it worth it to get platinum over gold

[RONOTHAN##]

2 minutes ago, Tibby said:

Is it worth it to get platinum over gold

I've done the math before and it would take 10 years to even break even with the cost of power. Granted, that was with average pricing for US energy, so it might be a little more worth while for the UK with very expensive power, but I don't really know. I'd need to do the math again, and it's a bit late over here. 

[Tibby]

1 hour ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I've done the math before and it would take 10 years to even break even with the cost of power. Granted, that was with average pricing for US energy, so it might be a little more worth while for the UK with very expensive power, but I don't really know. I'd need to do the math again, and it's a bit late over here. 

What was the formula you used and ill do the math

[RONOTHAN##]

8 minutes ago, Tibby said:

What was the formula you used and ill do the math

There's no one forumla for it, hence why I didn't redo the math immediately. What you have to do is figure out amount of time the PC would be on in a day and what portion of that would be full load, as well as what the idle and full load power draws would be (make sure these are in kW, as that will make it easier later on when you need to use the electric price). Then you'd need to divide the power draw by the power efficiency at the given load using the official 80+ power efficiency standards, multiply those power figures by the amount of time (in hours) it'll be at that power state, add it up and get the per day power draw in kWh. Multiply that my 365, then multiply it by the price per kWh for each power supply and you'll see how much you save per year by going for each of the efficiency tiers. Then it's just divide the cost difference by the price difference to figure out how long it'll take for it to make its money back. 

 

Every time I've done the math, it's come back as 10 years to break even with very heavy usage, by that point you want to get a new PSU anyway. Granted, US pricing is a lot less than the UK for energy, so the numbers might come out different. 

[mariushm]

Power supplies have different efficiency levels depending on how much power components inside consume. 

You'll have a particular power consumption at  idle (when you're just in Windows typing something in a forum, watching a Youtube video etc)  and another power consumption when you're playing a video game.

 

For the sake of this example, let's say your components consume 100w when idle, and 500 watts when you're playing games.

Now you need to determine how many hours each day your computer is gonna be "idle", and how many hours it's gonna be under load, playing games.

For the sake of this example, let's say your computer works 3 hours at idle, and 5 hours at gaming each day.

 

Now let's take two random power supplies, one gold efficiency and one platinum - gonna pick 2 from Techpowerup reviews, because I know they have efficiency graphs:

 

Gold efficiency : Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 1000 W Review - ATX v3.0 & PCIe 5.0 Ready | TechPowerUp

Platinum efficiency : MSI MEG Ai1000P 1000 W Review - ATX 3.0 & PCIe 5.0 Ready | TechPowerUp

 

So now, let's look at the efficiency curves for each power supply and see how efficient they are when they give 80w to components, and how efficient they are when they give 500w to components :

 

Gold efficiency :

 

So you look on the x axis at 100w line and 500w line, and with 115v input (red) you can see the power supply will be 88% efficient at 100w, and around 90.5% at 500w.

 

 

Now let's see platinum :

Surprisingly, this platinum is LESS efficient at 100w, it's only 86% efficient at 100w , but it's much more efficient  at 500w - let's say 92.1% at 500w .

 

 

So

Gold Power consumption :  100w  x  100% / 88% = 113.6w at idle  ,  500w  x 100% / 90.5% =  552.5w at gaming

Platinum power consumption : 100w  x  100% / 86% = 116.3w at idle  ,  500w  x 100% / 92.1% =  542.9w at gaming

 

Now you multiply those values by the number  of hours a day and number of days in a year .

 

Gold :  365 days x  [    3 hours a day x 113.6w   + 5 hours a day x 552.5 ]   = 365* 3,103.3w  = 1,132,704.5  or  1132.7 kWh  a year

Platinum : 365 days x  [    3 hours a day x 116.3w   + 5 hours a day x 542.9 ]   = 365* 3,063.4w  = 1,118,141  or  1118.1 kWh a year

 

So assuming you're paying 0.2$ a kWh , you're looking at $226.5 a year versus $223.5 a year  - so with these two power supplies, with these number of hours of idle vs gaming a day, you'd be saving 3$ a year by going with platinum.

 

It can be bigger different with different power supplies, but usually not enough to be worth paying more than around 20-30$ more on platinum - you don't save that much in electricity over 3-5 years.