Power Usage Question

B

budec

Gawd
Joined
Jul 10, 2002
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I'm building a system and trying to use as less power as possible (to lower monthly bill)

I'm planning on building an Atom 330 server. I have a choice between a 300W and 400W PSU. Both are 80%+ (80 PLUS Certified). Does the wattage matter or just how much the CPU/components are taking?

Anyone know of a 80%+ PSU that is 200W or lower?
 
Well for a system with that low of power usage, you might look at PicoPSU's which are close to 100% efficiency, and better suited to low-power situations.

80watt would be plenty I'd think. and about ~$40-50 with a brick.

But it also depends on how many drives you're planning on using... it wouldn't be good for too many drives... 1-2 drives it'd be fine... but beyond that I wouldn't use a small pico-psu
 
Also, if lowest possible power consumption is a goal, you might want to look at the next gen Atom/Pineview platform (Google "Intel D510MO").
 
Last edited:
Blazestorm said:
Well for a system with that low of power usage, you might look at PicoPSU's which are close to 100% efficiency
Click to expand...
Only the DC-DC part is close to 100%. You still need a 12V source to feed the PicoPSU which can be efficient or inefficient depending on the specific power supply used.
 
budec said:
I'm planning on building an Atom 330 server. I have a choice between a 300W and 400W PSU. Both are 80%+ (80 PLUS Certified). Does the wattage matter or just how much the CPU/components are taking?

Anyone know of a 80%+ PSU that is 200W or lower?
Click to expand...

As a rule of thumb, PSU's tend to get less efficient the less they are loaded (as a percentage of max wattage). I believe, however, that the 80PLUS certification requires that the PSU must be at least 80% efficient at 20% load, or better if it's 80PLUS Silver or Gold. That works out to 60W for a 300W PSU. I'm not sure if that load is measured at the wall outlet or at the DC output though. I'd go with the 300W or better yet the PicoPSU w/ a good quality power brick.
 
Metaluna said:
I'm not sure if that load is measured at the wall outlet or at the DC output though. I'd go with the 300W or better yet the PicoPSU w/ a good quality power brick.
Click to expand...

It's the DC load. +1 on your suggestion. At the end of the day though efficiency will probably be fairly similar, power bricks won't be more than 85% efficient and you lose a couple more in the DC-DC, so similar to a decent small 80+ supply, but you don't need any fans and the form factor is very small, which is nice.
 
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