Power supplies

[Clank [MM]]

In the past I had a few rigs running that were mostly created off Ebay. I remember Kevint telling me to not bother with cases ( he was right ). Always looking for a break, one being a group of power supplies. None were rated and I thought I got a good price. My electric bill was tripping the $500 dollar mark ( I did say a few rigs ). Yes I know some of you senior members beat that but now that I'm building new rigs I put an emphasis on the efficiency of the power supply. I never realized the difference an 80 gold makes. My current bill is hitting $160 and the first rig has 4 - 5870'S ( under $600 for the 4, good price per core ) I just finished the next one and pushing the CPU I7-3770k ( MicroCenter $229 ) it never breaks 190 watts. Looking at that makes me feel comfortable getting back up to speed. I have been told the best efficiency is 1/2 the rated power, meaning it runs your rig in a "relaxed" state. I have been buying Thermaltake 750's 80 gold plus ( $100 Newegg, the GPU rig is a 1200 and runs great ) in case I add GPU's later. Has anyone else noticed this or have some advise to add? I would appreciate it.

[John P. Myers]

;61520']In the past I had a few rigs running that were mostly created off Ebay. I remember Kevint telling me to not bother with cases ( he was right ). Always looking for a break, one being a group of power supplies. None were rated and I thought I got a good price. My electric bill was tripping the $500 dollar mark ( I did say a few rigs ). Yes I know some of you senior members beat that but now that I'm building new rigs I put an emphasis on the efficiency of the power supply. I never realized the difference an 80 gold makes. My current bill is hitting $160 and the first rig has 4 - 5870'S ( under $600 for the 4, good price per core ) I just finished the next one and pushing the CPU I7-3770k ( MicroCenter $229 ) it never breaks 190 watts. Looking at that makes me feel comfortable getting back up to speed. I have been told the best efficiency is 1/2 the rated power, meaning it runs your rig in a "relaxed" state. I have been buying Thermaltake 750's 80 gold plus ( $100 Newegg, the GPU rig is a 1200 and runs great ) in case I add GPU's later. Has anyone else noticed this or have some advise to add? I would appreciate it.

Another thing you'll notice is the 80+ Gold and Platinum PSUs put off less heat as well. I've been using Thermaltake 80+ rated PSUs for a few years now. I would never use an unrated PSU again.

[Cruncher Pete]

I can relate to that and can only confirm that you are correct in your assumption. First of all, I used to upgrade old machines and if the PSU in the old machine was working, my motto was if it is not broken than do not fix it. Right now I have passed that era for all those old PSU's of 450 Watts have died and I replaced them with either 750W or 800W 80+ rating. It is stated that it will work at least 80% of their stated capacity. A few weeks ago, there was a special running on an 800GS machine and I did not notice that it did not have an 80+ rating. I am glad that it only lasted a week or so for I returned it, got my money back and purchased a Thermaltake 80+ one.b-)

As regards the cases, I have to admit that I did purchase new cases for my machines as I upgraded and I kind of like the CoollerMaster HAF cases. The only reason I was doing that is that if I want to sell them, I need to provide a good case as a selling point. Having said that, I take off the front cover and disconnect some of the fans as they are not doing any good running open as they are. This saves a few bucks on the power even though it is not much.

Just think of us poor Aussie pensioners, we always cry that we can not live on an old age pension. Last year the cost of power more than doubled int he twelve months and they are doing it again. As from July 1 it will go up again by 22%. That means that in addition to the cost of power, the cost of food will also increase by that or more % since it will also be passed on to us. There goes the price of cost of living. Some old folks can not afford it already and have been using candles at night and subsequently burned down their house. :mad: