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Worth swapping in more efficient PSU?

sswilson

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I've got a system running 24/7 that's drawing under 200W. It's currently running on a Corsair CV650 650W 80+ Bronze PSU, but I grabbed one of the 550W Seasonic SSR-550FM 80+ Gold PSUs from the recent sale as a household spare.

Would it be worthwhile swapping the 550W one in? Not only is it a higher efficiency PSU, I suspect a 200W draw would be more in line with the max efficiency of a 550W PSU than it would be of a 650W.

Thoughts?


 

gingerbee

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it all depends on the efficiency rating of those PSU at the power draw you using. you know its different for every PSU I don't know what those units power efficiency curve is like, I myself have always gone with Seasonic but that's just to my liking
 

Izerous

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Make a copy and fill in more accurately if necessary but the difference in efficiency from going from like 30% load to 33% load is pretty much irrelivant i think.

I randomly entered $0.07/kWh i don't recall what the current rates are
 

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JD

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Seems silly to leave a Gold PSU on the shelf and keep running a Bronze. Plus with age, I'd imagine a PSU becomes less efficient?

And wow, power is that cheap in Alberta? Our off-peak is 8.2c in Toronto and doubled to 17c at peak.
 

Bond007

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I wouldn’t say it’s worth buying a higher tier psu to swap in, but if you already have it, then absolutely! Sell the old one.
 

sswilson

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Seems silly to leave a Gold PSU on the shelf and keep running a Bronze. Plus with age, I'd imagine a PSU becomes less efficient?

And wow, power is that cheap in Alberta? Our off-peak is 8.2c in Toronto and doubled to 17c at peak.

We don't have tiered KW/h in NB so it's a flat 11.38c.

I'll punch in the numbers tomorrow, but yeah I'm inclined to swap it out since I have both on hand.
 

Izerous

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No tiered power and the last couple bills have been higher but i'm pretty sure during the summer I was looking at 7-8c/kWh I think we are closer to 12c right now but my wife handles the monthly bills so we can note it for the rental etc.
 

Valkyrie

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Probably a little over a couple of bucks a month for 200 Watts 24/7 difference between 90% and 80% efficient PSU's based on $0.11 KWh. Efficiency is highest in the midrange and lowest at the bottom end as I'm sure you know.
 

sswilson

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Probably a little over a couple of bucks a month for 200 Watts 24/7 difference between 90% and 80% efficient PSU's based on $0.11 KWh. Efficiency is highest in the midrange and lowest at the bottom end as I'm sure you know.

Heh... $2 is $2....... :)

And yeah, because of the relatively low power draw, I was already leaning towards the efficiency curve possibly being a bigger deal than the gold vs bronze rating. Now that I've had a second look at the PC's config, I'm realising that it's probably closer to 130/140W than 200 so maybe I should source a 400W PSU. :)

Either way, I did the swap this morning and everything is back up and running.
 

Valkyrie

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Heh... $2 is $2....... :)

And yeah, because of the relatively low power draw, I was already leaning towards the efficiency curve possibly being a bigger deal than the gold vs bronze rating. Now that I've had a second look at the PC's config, I'm realising that it's probably closer to 130/140W than 200 so maybe I should source a 400W PSU. :)

Either way, I did the swap this morning and everything is back up and running.
Don't blow your savings on another PSU...unless you really want to..:)
 

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