How much $$ do you save in electricty with 80%+ PSU's compared to 60%?

I am building a few mini-itx computers. 780G boards, with AMD 45w cpu's, probably 4450e's or LE-1640's and 2.5" HDD's. I am having trouble locating Antec 380w earthwatt psu's locally at a good price (shipping would cost $100+ from newegg......I need 6 psu's) , but can easily get some no name 350w micro-ATX psu's for next to nothing and zero shipping cost. I have yet to find a micro-atx psu that was also 80% plus and really perfer a small psu. Assuming the no name psu's work fine , how much $$ average can a person expect to save using an 80%+ psu compared to stuff that's under 60% per year on a system that is usually on and running at near full load?

pcboost.com has the earthwatts 500D for $35, free ship. It's the delta design, but still rated at 80%.

You have to supply your own power cord though.

newegg has the 380w earthwatts for $29 with free shipping, but if you live in Hawaii, no body ships to you for free

380 watts should be more then enough and my understanding is going with more watts then you can possbily need will lower efficiency. Think I can actually run the system with a 200w psu, hell maybe just 150w.

Ahh, the price of luxury for living in Hawaii...

not sure on the power savings...but you should be able to run those on a 150w psu without a hitch. I run my Carpc off a 150w psu (Opus) and it's an older mini-itx board, P4 3.06Ghz, 1Gb ram, 1xDVDrom, 2x2.5" hdd's, PCI wireless and Bluetooth card, USB kb and GPS, and 2x 7" TFT Touchscreen. ALL of that (including the LCD screens) is run off the 150w psu...so if all you're powering is the components you listed...no way you need a 380w psu

I don't imagine that with the lower powered components the difference in savings would be huge...but even if it's just a couple dollars per month that will add up..and if savings is a concern, that's something to consider

Well, I'd be running 6 of these builds, so even if it saves $2 a month per build, that would be $12 a month and $144 a year, so I either pay for effiency now or pay more for it over time with increased electricity charges. Just wondering if it actually is that much of a difference? If it's a dollar or two a year per build, I am really not concerned, but per month, that would be worth the effort.

My math is probably off (someone please correct me if so, this is all pointless if the numbers aren't right), and I'm assuming each machine pulls 100 watts at load, and is on 24/7 at said load. Also pulled a number of 28 cents per kWh for Hawaii, but that was as of May 2008(?), dunno what it is now.

For one machine

100 watts / 0.60 efficiency = 166.7 watts -> 120 kWh per month
120 kWh x 0.28 = $33.60/month

100 watts / 0.80 efficiency = 125 watts -> 90 kWh per month
90 kWh x 0.28 = $25.20/month

So a savings of $8.40 per machine per month. Of course, most mediocre power supplies are typically closer to the ~70% efficiency range at nominal load as opposed to ~60%, and I don't think there's any 80%+ PSU that can actually attain that efficiency with small machines like the ones you're using, so you can probably expect to cut the savings to about half of that realistically.

Thanks for the reply Trombe. Looks like in a year, the savings in electricty would easily cover the extra cost now. Just wished they made smaller PSU's both in size and wattage that was 80%+. I'd do a pico psu, but price on those are $50 and thats before getting the power brick and I read somewhere that the DC to DC board might be very efficient, but the power brick drops that effiency way down.

link to a listing of 80plus psu manufacturers http://www.80plus.org/manu/psu/psu_join.aspx

maybe in that list you'll be able to find one locally? Quite a few names I've never heard of on there though so the reliability would come into question unless someone can verify.