PS Efficiency And Energy Bills

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piako

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Would a higher efficiency power supply lower your energy costs? Is it like processor leakage where some power is lost in heat? Would it be worth it to spend say twice what it would normally cost to get a power supply say a ~500W that would be around 65% at say $50 and then around 80% at ~$100 (hypothetical)? Is this a figure you guys look at when choosing power supplies?
 
They are?

Silverstone Element 500W is under $100.
 
Yeah but with shipping and tax it's over $100. Newegg has it for $89. I consider that prohibitive when less efficient psus that work decent are 1/2 the price. Not much I can do about that I guess.
 
It makes sense to me that a psu rated for higher wattage (say..700w) with good efficiency could save money vs. an overstressed, cheap 400w.
 
seasonic's S12 line is all around 80% efficiency however, they are more pricey than their counterparts

for relatively cheap high efficiency, look at Antec neoHE line
 
mmm the Antec neoHE's are still pricey (why are the review so poor?). The silverstone look like the bet in that price range. I just bought a thermaltake 430 W newegg had on sale and noticed it was 65%. I was like, um, ok. Works fine tho, just low efficiency. Buy 80% is only about 15+%. Wonder if that really matters?
 
Assuming 80% efficiency and 400 Watts of load, that means you are wasting 80watt/hours of energy when you are running your PC. Not a signifigant amount at all. Assuming 60% efficiency, that jumps to 160watt/hours, etc.

Compare that to the average cost per Kw/hour of US electricity, which is around maybe 9 cents. You are counting pennies tbh.

Higher efficiency power supply considerations are generally more political (energy conservation and all that) and practical (higher efficiency means less heat and noise, and generally implies a smoother and more stable power curve) than financial.
 
ahhhh, another scam to make money, unless the cost of energy rises very quickly. thx
 
Well its not total bull. Depends on if you leave your comptuer on all day and where you live as well.

Avg computer is going to be drawing ~90W while idle. People here will generally have some high end rigs and ocing and crap so we'll say 130W idle. Depending on how often your computer is stressed (games/encoding/blah/blah) lets just call it 150W avg overall for nice numbers.

150/80%=187.50Watts from the wall
vs
150/65%=230.77Watts from the wall

Spending $50 extra on a high eff saves you 43.27Watts over a year that would be 379.05KWHs.

379.05*.0986 US avg cost of electricty= $37.37/year savings

How often do you get a new PSU? Every other year? So spending $50 extra after two years will have saved you $74.75. You'd be gaining $24.75 plus you'd have a quiet computer and warm fuzzy feeling you are doing something good.

If you live in cali btw, @$.14/KWH it'll be saving you $53.067 per year and after 2 years you will have made $56.14 plus the warm fuzzy feeling.

THis is also ignoring the addition AC costs.

---edit----
oh yea and that 2 years is like minimum, I got a 300watt seasonic like 4 years ago or something when they firest came out and my gf is using it now.. if you do $37.37*4 years the power supply paid for itself.
 
Working on a SS right now. Too bad I don't know asp and then could pull the prices automatically. Ho Hum. Avg KW/H here $0.15491746 calculated.

picture3hi1.png
 
piako said:
Yeah but with shipping and tax it's over $100. Newegg has it for $89. I consider that prohibitive when less efficient psus that work decent are 1/2 the price. Not much I can do about that I guess.
Click to expand...

No.

You're comparing apples and orange (unless you take into consideration a special rebate, clearance item, etc.)

A $50 500W PSU is still not as good as an Silverstone Element 500W even if you DON'T take the 80+ efficiency into consideration.

I'm sorry, but I simply can not group a Powmax and an Silverstone into the same category.

A more realistic comparison would be something in the $80 or $85 range. Only a $20 delta for efficiency difference. If you get an Enhance (Silverstone OEM) than you can shave another $10 to $15 off that price.
 
Right now I use a Thermaltake W0070 that was on sale for about $30 on newegg. I had a silencer 470 ATX but that wasn't working too well (need to send it back for testing). The thermaltake has ~65% efficiency. I suspect if I use the computer for another 3 years at average load of 300W 24/7 moving to a Antec NeoHE 380 would save me $92 after the cost of the PSU. About $30/year. I do you my computers 24/7 (folding when I'm asleep/gone).

Plus the related cost of cooling my apartment to abate the heat produced by the lowly 65% psu would also be erased or reduced if moving to a more efficient psu.

I'm going to read the faq on psus so I can learn more.

The system isn't overclocked (well it is, but it's a stock OEM overclock if that makes sense only on the CPU). Maybee I'll try some FPS gaming and see if I can get the psu to crack.

It would be nice to get one of those kill a watts but nobody sells them around here. Guess gotta go online and pay for shipping.
 
piako said:
Right now I use a Thermaltake W0070 that was on sale for about $30.
Click to expand...

Perfect example of how you're comparing apples and oranges. The TR2 430W is an entry level, ATX 2.01 (not ATX12V) power supply with only 18A on the 12V rail and it doesn't even have PFC.
 
thx jonnyGURU, wish I would have asked earlier.

I was trying to use zippy's psu calculator but am having a hard time finding the voltage specs for stuff like my fanbus, ram, headphones. Plus how does that work. I used the pull down menu and selected the quantity but nothing updated. Do you have to hit 'emacs psu.' Tried that but didn't work. Can always make a ss for it.
 
If no value comes up, you have to fill them in based on what's on a device's label. Then, all quantity does, is multiplies the values for you.
 
Thx. You have any good links to the amps that memory uses (like PC100/133)? I agree that the breakdown by 3,3/5/12 such makes much more sense than just W.
 
Thinking the Antec NeoHe's are the way to go! Thx Asian Dub Foundation.

Modular, good sleeving, active pfc, and decent efficiency. plus juicy heatsinks. Most of the reviews are from people who couldn't get it to work with their asus sli mobos.

Was also looking at hiper ones (HPU-4K580) but their efficiency is kinda low too, but pretty much the same as the NeoHe's, except they don't offer PFC in the usa. Most might not care.

Only thing I found out about pfc that seemed remembering is that us domestic is billed in KW/H and Europe is KVA, so pfc imp. there. Also, the reactive voltage of non-pfc systems f's with the power lines and causes them to be thicker gauge then they would need to be if everything was pfc of ~1 which costs people more I guess when they roll the overhead into the kw/h (transmission) cost.
 
It's down to these three.

CoolMax Taurus CU-600T
HPU-4K580-MS
Antec NeoHE 550

The NeoHE has great efficiency, but the review also shows the OCZ modstream at over 90%. Amazing! But the cables are so ugly, periwinkle blue connectors with silver jacket. :x

Difficult to trust the tomshardware review b/c it's the uk model.

If I could have it my way I would want the performance of the antec, the looks of the hiper, and the cabling/sleeving of the coolmax. Ugh, hate making decisions like this.
 
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