this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
971 points (95.6% liked)

Technology

59197 readers
2452 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (4 children)

I mean, it should be fine, just because the PSU can provide more watts doesn't mean the system is actually using that much power. I have an 800w PSU in my gaming rig, but its average load is only 240 - 320w during gaming (I've measured it by powering the system with a portable Ecoflow battery).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (3 children)

It runs fine, it's just less efficient.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Where are you getting this from? Intuition?

I think the quiescent current and losses are less in a well engineered psu.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This is verifiable in manufactures data sheets.

Efficiency at less than 20% and greater than 80% loads isn't great relative to in between those ends.

This is compounded by lower wattage PSUs being more limited with regard to features and benefits.

If you end up with a 650w PSU and your system idles at 80 watts for the bulk of a working day you spend long periods of time in this less efficient window.

We need to see some quality 300w to 600w designs come back onto the market.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Well, it depends on how much you're spending: 80 plus titanium units, for example, are 90% efficient at both ends of the spectrum, which is as good as a 80 plus gold unit at the ideal 50% load.

Of course, they're expensive, and thus maybe not really the best solution since the wasted power is probably never going to add up to the cost of the better PSU, but there is enough of a demand for high and low load efficiency that it's a thing that you could go buy.