Surge protector vs UPS

[Justin1311]

pretty much exactly what the title says i currently have a APC P11VT3 surge protector for both my pc and home theater should i upgrade to a UPS or am i good as is? i dont have manny power outages a year and i dont do anything crucial on my pc that would need saving before shutting down. Its mainly used for gaming. That being said between all the electronics it is about 9000$ worth of equipment.

[W-L]

Just now, Justin1311 said:

pretty much exactly what the title says i currently have a APC P11VT3 surge protector for both my pc and home theater should i upgrade to a UPS or am i good as is? i dont have manny power outages a year and i dont do anything crucial on my pc that would need saving before shutting down. Its mainly used for gaming. That being said between all the electronics it is about 9000$ worth of equipment.

If you want to ensure you don't have data loss a UPS would be something to look into. It does also help protect the systems better than a surge protector as UPS's have an AVR to compensate for any change in line voltage and can completely cut itself off from the grid if power quality is bad. 

 

-Moved to Case and Power Supplies- 

[Nocte]

If you barely have any power outage, you are good as you are right now...

[c4deszes]

The advantage of a UPS is not only that it will keep your electronics running if there's a power outage but it will also protect again surges. So if you are doing something other than browsing the web then I would definitely invest in one. Choosing one isn't easy but most companies will have a spreadsheet, or graph that will recommend a unit based on your computer's power consumption. Note that wattage doesn't say anything about the capacity of the unit, so there may be a unit with 600W advertised that can only sustain it for 10 seconds so you will have to check the datasheet for that. 

 

The disadvantage of a UPS is that it cuts you off mains, which means electronics that aren't connected through the UPS may be incompatible with the rest of your system. This might result in a surge when hotplugging devices together with interfaces that aren't completely isolated or aren't protected (most of today's electronics are although I would never hotplug old stuff like VGA)

 

UPSs aren't cheap especially if you require a high capacity one. I would generate a list of all the equipment you would want to be safe if the power goes out, like computers, router and modem (so you don't lose internet access). Calculate the total wattage they need (check the power bricks) and then based on that find a UPS that can deliver that much for your budget while maximizing the time it can run for.