Power Supply importance

[chungus]

Do we really need those fancy power supplies like gold rated, plat rated etc? My buddy's been rocking a Zebronics PSU with a GTX 1060 for five years, and it's still chugging along fine. Are those big-name power supplies as essential as some PC folks make them out to be, or is it all just a bit overhyped?

 

[rsaeon]

At the very least, for efficiency reasons, a white/bronze rated power supply is a good idea. I haven't turned off any of my computers since the 90s, so I've been using name-brand power supplies since around 2002. I've never owned anything more than gold rated though, platinum/titanium rated units are usually reserved for +1000W systems where dropping down to a gold rated unit would result in excessive heat output. Higher the rating, lower the amount of energy produced as heat.

For ultra budget builds without GPU, I have used <1k power supplies and I don't recall any of them dying — they were upgraded before any one component died.

That said, the GTX 1060 isn't a very power hungry card.

 

[gourav]

Higher the rating, lower the amount of energy produced as heat.

So where does the electric energy go?
If two PSUs are consuming 500w of power, regardless of their rating, that 500w of electricity will all get converted to heat. Remember, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So all energy consumed by the PC is eventually going to end up as heat.

Do we really need those fancy power supplies like gold rated, plat rated etc?

Think of it like an insurance.

Do we really need MCBs in houses in Mumbai? I've been living here for 4 years and there has been zero incidents. But we still put it. Because if something has to go wrong, it will not warn you in advance. It will just go wrong.

With a branded PSU, when something goes wrong, it will either shut off with no damage, or shut off with damage and protect the components. With an unbranded PSU, it is highly likely to take your motherboard and graphics card with it.

You pay for that peace of mind. If nothing happens, great. Who wants incidents anyway. But if someday something does go wrong, it might just be the difference between nothing and calling the fire fighters.

 

[rsaeon]

So where does the electric energy go?

It's probably more accurate to say that it's lost as heat before being utilized.

A 90% efficient PSU will use 100W of electricity, produce 90W of DC power for your computer to use, and expel 10W as heat.

A 80% efficient PSU will use 100W of electricity, produce 80W of DC power for your computer to use, and expel 20W as heat.

In both cases you're paying for 100W of electricity, but the amount of usuable power is reduced in the case of a lower efficiency power supply.

In a more realistic situation, If your system needs 500W of power under load, a 90% efficient power supply would draw 555W, while an 80% efficient power supply would draw 625W.

That difference of 70W would be expelled as heat that ends up warming up your room and result in an increase in your electricity bill — by two factors, firstly by lower efficiency, and secondly by cooling/exhausting that heat by AC or fan.

 

[n1r0]

So where does the electric energy go?
If two PSUs are consuming 500w of power, regardless of their rating, that 500w of electricity will all get converted to heat. Remember, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So all energy consumed by the PC is eventually going to end up as heat.

PSU power spec = its output power
PSU rating = how much more power it consumes to provide the rated output power. This is always greater than output power
All 800W PSUs will provide 800W of power
The difference is how much power they consume

With UPS it's the opposite. If you have a 1000VA UPS it means it will consume 1000W as input from the batteries (VA = volt * amp = W)
But usually they are only 60-65% effiecient
So actual power output will only be ~600W.
The difference of nearly ~350-400W is wasted as heat in the inverter. This is the reason you can't replace the tiny UPS battery with huge truck battery to extend backup time, it will overheat - it was not designed to run for long periods.

 

[gourav]

A 90% efficient PSU will use 100W of electricity, produce 90W of DC power for your computer to use, and expel 10W as heat.

A 80% efficient PSU will use 100W of electricity, produce 80W of DC power for your computer to use, and expel 20W as heat.

The difference of nearly ~350-400W is wasted as heat

What happens to the power that gets "consumed"? Again, energy can neither be created not destroyed. Even the electricity which is consumed, eventually gets converted to heat.

Efficiency has nothing to do with heat generation. Every unit of electricity consumed will end up as heat. Higher efficiency means to provide a certain amount of power, the actual used power will be lower, hence heat generated will also be lower.

And if your PC is pulling 300 watts of power, the PSU will supply 300 watts, regardless of whether it is rated 500 watt or 1000 watt. So again, wattage of the PSU has nothing to do with the amount of heat generated.

 

[rsaeon]

Even the electricity which is consumed, eventually gets converted to heat.

lost as heat before being utilized

In normal situations, you want to use the electricity you're paying for, before it is lost as heat.

Efficiency has nothing to do with heat generation.


Higher efficiency means to provide a certain amount of power, the actual used power will be lower, hence heat generated will also be lower.

Higher efficiency means less energy is lost as heat within the power supply itself.

So again, wattage of the PSU has nothing to do with the amount of heat generated.

A higher wattage power supply usually has higher efficiency, which means less heat generated from the power supply itself. Which means less energy wasted by the power supply as heat. Which means more energy passed on to the other components to be used if needed.

To be clear, I meant heat generated by the power supply. Not by the remaining components. If the power supply generates excessive heat during the conversion of AC to DC, that means less energy is available to the rest of the PC components. Meaning you're losing energy to before it is utilized, kind of like a leaky bucket.

A 1000W gold rated power supply will consume (1000/89%) 1123W to provide 1000W of power, producing 123W of heat.

For platinum rated power supply, it will consume (1000/90%) 1111W to provide 1000W of power, producing 111W of heat.

For titanium rated power supply, it will consume (1000/94%) 1063W to provide 1000W of power, producing 63W of heat.

In all three cases, the components consume 1000W by themselves while the amount consumed by the power supply varies greatly. You're sure to notice the difference between the three power supplies over the course of a few hours of gaming.

Do we really need those fancy power supplies

There are ways to make the most of 'budget' power supplies. Here's the tested efficiency of a 450W Cooler Master MWE Bronze rated power supply:



At 50% power draw, it's almost 89% efficient — on par with a Gold rated power supply but at a Bronze rated price point. If your system consumes around 200W to 250W while gaming, this would be a solid choice (efficiency-wise).

So if you can measure how much your system consumes at nominal workloads (either gaming or consuming media, depending on what is more likely) you can save money by purchasing a power supply that's efficient within the wattage needed by your components. I personally choose power supplies that are more than 89% efficient the wattage range that I need.

 

[n1r0]

And if you're PC is pulling 300 watts of power, the PSU will supply 300 watts, regardless of whether it is rated 500 watt or 1000 watt.

True. What the efficiency rating determines is to provide that 300W output, how much more does the PSU consume from the wall. It could be:

• 333W for a Platinum (90%)
• 345W for a Gold (87%)
• 366W for a bronze (82%)

You will get 300W in all those cases, but your electric bill will be higher with a less efficient PSU, and your room will be slightly warmer.

Efficiency has nothing to do with heat generation. Every unit of electricity consumed will end up as heat. Higher efficiency means to provide a certain amount of power, the actual used power will be lower, hence heat generated will also be lower.

The greater the difference between input and output power, the more is the heat generated. The lower the difference, the more. From the above example:
Platinum generates 44W of waste heat
Gold = 45W of waste heat
Bronze = 66W of waste heat
You are paying to produce this extra heat, which is not useful, so it's the PSU is less efficient

 

[Alucard1729]

Fellow members have great points to share here either in terms of looking into how an efficient psu would cut down on extraneous or unused power consumed and how different 80 plus rating waste less power with increment in tiers.
When you think of all these and the price demanded by major psu brands its still comes short of convincing the end user for their high price.
When you look into a psu from major company most of them come with huge unrealistic warranties. 10yrs is too much. Then there's the quality of components used, when you design psu, a simple rectification for 220v might be very cheap and adding protection for thermal, short circuits, over voltage, over current, over load doesn't cost that much. But what costs is to make a psu that would work not only on 220v also on 120v, and with continuous usage you have to see how much heat is wasted in the psu and select components rated to work at those temperatures sustaining there rated capacities for years to come. Majority of bronze rated psu and above have bulk caps and Power ICs made from handful of OEM brands, there's not much innovation to be done in terms of psu topology, the race is now for more efficiency and thus better parts (take the Gan FETs for example, intially there prices were high, given the huge supply prices are now dropping).
Yeah if these companies primarily design their psu for indian market and reduce the warranties, then of course you will see quite the depreciation in price, more so for higher wattage PSUs. Over engineering with multiple protection and standards to meet (which I absolutely don't mind), price for licensing and certification, cost for warranty, and the slight cut, brings the price to where it is.
For power elctronics the desi way to measure quality is to weigh similar wattage psu and more the weight better it is XD. This is also the reason those bitcoin mining psu with over 2kW rating cost more less than half of similar wattage psu from known brands.


Zebronics and other local branded psu are good up until you don't cross their wattage or come near it for regular continuous use, the day you see the magic smoke is when you will start to believe there was no overhype and proceed with shelling for branded ones.

 

[calvin1719]

There are ways to make the most of 'budget' power supplies.

I don't really know how we got into efficiency, but there's a huge difference between 'budget' and the type of PSUs the OP mentioned.
Even the budget PSUs from reliable brands, more often that not, have good circuitry and quality of components. There are some lemons of course, but by and large the quality of design and components used is leaps and bounds ahead of stuff like Frontech and Zebronics. In my youth I have lost many motherboards to these cheap PSUs.

 

[-purpleshad0w-]

@chungus do you know which zebronics power supply your friend is using. They've recently been putting out a few not-completely-terrible PSUs in contrast to the abominations from their earlier days, maybe he has one of those. I'm talking about the Realwatts series.

Also, if you'd like to have a more objective understanding at what makes cheap power supplies so bad then these testing videos of such units might help;

This is from Aris' channel, he does the PSU reviews for all the major tech sites and also is an engineer at Cybernetics Ltd.

 

[sandeepsachin]

Do we really need those fancy power supplies like gold rated, plat rated etc? My buddy's been rocking a Zebronics PSU with a GTX 1060 for five years, and it's still chugging along fine. Are those big-name power supplies as essential as some PC folks make them out to be, or is it all just a bit overhyped?

Which model of zebronics?
This one? https://www.amazon.in/Zebronics-connectors-Suitable-Regular-Computers/dp/B0BZJKDWJZ?th=1

 

[chungus]

Which model of zebronics?
This one? https://www.amazon.in/Zebronics-connectors-Suitable-Regular-Computers/dp/B0BZJKDWJZ?th=1

No the one without paint

 

[nRiTeCh]

Do we really need those fancy power supplies like gold rated, plat rated etc? My buddy's been rocking a Zebronics PSU with a GTX 1060 for five years, and it's still chugging along fine. Are those big-name power supplies as essential as some PC folks make them out to be, or is it all just a bit overhyped?

I was rocking on a branded HCL 23v power supply for 18yrs but decades ago there was quality material and now one cannot risk wit a power supply.
So, if zebby is rocking for him it might not rock but backfire on you..
I have used zebronics back in yr 2k6 and it blew up with a big bang theory like sound in my absence just under 2 years and thereafter no cheapo brands. It anyways came wit the cabinet.

Always get a gold rate psu!