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...budgeting? Y'all don't just buy the meatiest beefcake PSU that microcenter has in stock?
I bought a 1200w PSU in like 2011 and it's chugging along through multiple upgrades and two different builds. They forgot to put the quit in that one
In 2021 I replaced my old PC power and cooling 750w PSU that I bought in like 2009. When I pulling it out I found a build date from 2006 on it. That thing was a great PSU.
PSUs are waaaaay more efficient when operating closer to their rated capacity. Pulling 200W through a 1kW power supply is like making a marathon runner breathe through a straw.
The sweet spot is the 40-60% load.
But it doesn't make that much of a difference. The efficiency swing is maybe 10%. Like an bronze 80 rated PSU will have a minimum efficiency of 80%, but even if you're at the 50% load mark it won't be over 90% efficient.
The main point (to me anyways) is that its dumb to pay more for a power supply just so you can pay "more* on your power bill. If your idle load is 100W and your gaming load is 300W, you've got no reason running more than a 600W PSU
While true. How much would it actually save you in electricity? If you upgrade every year wouldn’t it be cheaper to just buy the bigger psu outright and pay the extra cost in electricity so you don’t have to buy another PSU when you get more power hungry components.
Is there another option?
Like if you don't have at least 1kW PSU what happens when you need more power
The streetlights dim when I boot my machine.
The device needing more power won't get it, simple. Depending on what device it is, it will automatically throttle down so it needs less power, but obviously it will also deliver less performance while so throttled. And if the power is missing during a very sensitive part of a process so there's no time to throttle down, your PC could blue screen or restart.
It's very unlikely to suffer any long-term damage from this.
Yes, but the truth is unfunny
Joke if you want but that's actually a really good idea if you want device longevity. And their in-house brand has been rock solid in every build I've made for a reasonable price
Yep. The max wattage on a PSU goes down over time, so you want to overshoot somewhat to keep it useful for longer. Power requirements also typically go up over time with new hardware, but I think that's been slowing down.
Do you just write things you think people will upvote or do you really believe these things?
That was a problem I actually had when I had no budget, was buying old parts, and then running them way longer than they were intended. I kept everything clean, the tower wasn't on the carpet, and there were no smokers or pets shedding fur, but that PSU eventually started outputting significantly lower than it was rated for. The previous owner could have done something to it, or it could have been a crappy model to begin with, but it was about fifteen years old and I was told by several more veteran computer folks that PSUs would drop off in power output eventually and this wasn't surprising.
If you are filling your PSU with tar from cigarette smoking, yes, its max wattage will go down over time.
It's like making the marathon runner inhale your smoke while running the marathon.
My server/homelab runs on a picopsu.
Wolfgang? Is that you?
?
Reference to Wolfgang's Channel on YouTube. He's obsessed with power efficency.
I look at number of connectors... Who cares about wattage, I just need a mass of cables to tuck into every spare bit of space... Fans hate me.
The closest Microcenter to me is about a fourteen hour drive, so, no. Unfortunately, the closest equivalent in the Pacific Northwest went under several years ago and nobody has picked up the slack.