80 plus gold psu

[filibusterman]

How does this NZXT power supply look (NZXT Hale90 550W 80+ gold )? http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2138741&highlight=psu

I can either go with this gold or a 80 plus bronze Antec TruePower New TP-550 550W.

The price difference is 30 bucks.

Thanks

 

[petrusbroder]

Looks good to me ... I wish I could buy computer parts at the US-prices. The same PSU costs more than 110 US$ here in Sweden ...

 

[Ken g6]

I think you may be looking for this chart. Now figure out about how loaded your PSU will be, and do the math on how much power you'll save. I'll add that a good rule of thumb for power costs is that one Watt run continuously for one year costs one dollar. (That's for about $0.115/KWh. Your costs may be higher or lower.)

 

[Sunny129]

look at it this way - in order for a PS to qualify for the Gold standard of efficiency, it has to be built from the highest quality parts. since i haven't needed to purchase a PS in a long while myself, i don't specifically know as much about PS manufactures as i used to. that being said, i don't think it'll matter much whether you purchase one from a top-tier PS manufacturer or a lesser known brand, so long as the product is 80+ Gold certified. how do lesser/cheaper manufacturers have an 80+ Gold certified products? i think most are being built for them by a top-tier manufacturer and then relabeled/resold. that in and of itself will ensure a stable, reliable, and efficient PS.

the differences you probably WILL notice between an 80+ Gold certified PS from a top-tier manufacturer and one from a lesser known brand are things like heat generation and fan noise (and obviously a top-tier manufactured PS will generate less heat and make less noise). now $30 savings is nothing to sneer at. so i would say that it all depends on how important your personal computing needs are. i don't know what you do with your computer, but both my personal machine and my home office machine crunch numbers for distributed computing projects 24/7...that is, my CPU and various other components are under 100% load all the time. i have 80+ Bronze certified PS's in both of them...perhaps its time to upgrade to some 80+ Gold certified PS's, but my Bronze certified ones have help up like champs so far.

i know the gentlemen who posted above me are both quite involved in distributed computing as well, and as such rely on their power PS's to supply a consistent, reliable flow of power to their components 24/7. and when you're consuming that much power all the time, you want high efficiency. i will say this - you can't go wrong with either of the two PS's you're looking at (unless that is you underestimate how much wattage your PC will consume), but despite the Antec being the lesser of the two, i'm sure its still a heck of a product. i've used several Antec PS's over the last 10 years, and never had a problem with any of them.

 

[ElFenix]

WILL notice between an 80+ Gold certified PS from a top-tier manufacturer and one from a lesser known brand are things like heat generation

eh? gold is an efficiency measure. if the ratings aren't easily game-able (and they don't seem to be), the difference in heat generation between 2 equally rated and equally loaded goal power supplies should be minimal.

now, a gold 1000 watt power supply is going to generate more waste heat than a 500 watt when both are loaded to 100 watts due to where the supplies are on the efficiency curve.

 

[Sunny129]

eh? gold is an efficiency measure. if the ratings aren't easily game-able (and they don't seem to be), the difference in heat generation between 2 equally rated and equally loaded goal power supplies should be minimal.

now, a gold 1000 watt power supply is going to generate more waste heat than a 500 watt when both are loaded to 100 watts due to where the supplies are on the efficiency curve.

i tried to make it obvious that my statement was somewhat of a generalization...nevertheless, i agree with you when you say that the difference in heat generated by 2 equally rated and loaded PS's should be minimal. and your second point goes without saying, but i had assumed from the get-go that the OP was comparing 2 similarly rated PS's to begin with. but while the similarly rated and loaded components of 2 different PS's should generate similar amounts of heat, the fans used to dissipate said heat could be completely different from one another.

that's why i mentioned in my first post that some lesser known brands have their PS's manufactured and private labeled for them by some of the better known PS manufacturers - while the capacitors, coils, etc. may all be the same or similar between 2 different PS's, there may be differences between two fans' cooling capabilities, or their bearings (which would effect noise level).

 

[Ken g6]

I just did the math. At half-load (275W), over the course of a year, the Gold PSU would save you $18. So it ought to make up the price difference in less than two years. I'd go for the Gold.

 

[filibusterman]

Thanks for the discussion guys, Although I don't have a kill-a-watt meter but my most power hungry system at the moment is a i5 661/5850 ati /3 sata hard drives and one optical and usb mouse and keyboard so I think a 550Watt or so will be sufficient. As of now i just have an uber old ultra 600Watt in there but want to change it out before my rig goes the way of petrus . Also an increase in 20% efficiency will help the electric bill.

 

[Sunny129]

As of now i just have an uber old ultra 600Watt in there but want to change it out before my rig goes the way of petrus .

oh you saw that, eh? its amazing how just one component can have such adverse effects on all the other components. Petrus is lucky that he only needs to replace a mobo and one HDD...it could have been WAY worse. i've been lucky as hell in the past too. in fact, i've had 2 PS's die on me before, and luckily no additional components were damaged in either case...granted, the PS's just dies on me (and didn't blow up LOL).

 

[filibusterman]

oh you saw that, eh? its amazing how just one component can have such adverse effects on all the other components. Petrus is lucky that he only needs to replace a mobo and one HDD...it could have been WAY worse. i've been lucky as hell in the past too. in fact, i've had 2 PS's die on me before, and luckily no additional components were damaged in either case...granted, the PS's just dies on me (and didn't blow up LOL).

yea the last time this happened to me was a psu that came with a case it just stopped working....but nothing was damaged but since some of my psu are getting older it may be a good idea to open them up and make sure the caps are in ok shape.

 

[dajeepster]

I love watching a good nerd fight... not quite as good as a chick fight..

hmmm I have yet to witness two nerdy chicks fight.. D:

 

[petrusbroder]

Fight? LoL