What do you all think of this? Wow do I like my Kill A Watt meter

Sorry, I did it in excel and I couldn't figure out a better way to get this on the site. For the actual formatted results http://www.southwestspeedway.com/other/psu.html.

What exactly were you trying to prove/disprove?

Just to see the efficiency of different power supplies and also how much power my computer needs.

On the first note, the 600w is the newest and only cost me shipping and a stamp. It is also the only one with an efficiency curve from the manufacturer. It did pretty well for only being used used by about 44%. The 420W came with the case when I built my computer, so nothing special to be expected there. The 550W was purchased at a local store when I thought the 420W wasnt keeping up with my overclocking (when it was just vdroop from the mb). The 350W was free after rebate with a case and 120mm fan. Awesome deal, and it performed the most efficient.

Only estimators of how much power my psu should be have always said 350W+ When I could do just fine with all the way down to a 300W.

I thought people might be interested to see something like this. I've never seen people test their psu's with a kill a watt in a household setting.

Remember also that most PSUs are most efficient under relatively high loads, from what I have seen anyway. The high wattage units using the same system are under a much lower % load than the 350W.

I have a very similar system - at least from a power requirements perspective, including a P4 3.2 GHZ and GPU that pulls about 48W; although fewer HD. Do any of the tests listed reflect running a full load on your computer - stressing both the CPU and CPU? If not, do you know what a max load runs?

I am curious because the listed requirements seem to top out at about 250W. When I use a power calculator (theoretical), I get about 290-300W for my system. I have a 350W psu and was debating if I need to get a new PSU before adding a second HD.

Well don't always count on the PSU calc after all what your Kilowatt meter takes is AC load you loose at least 20%(more like 25-30) of your power to losses and heat in the psu.

If that sucker is SUPER efficient
your system is only taking about 200watts at load. Welcome to the world of knowing that computers do not need 1000watt psu's


2 Systems, router(~10 watts), switch(~10 watts), modem(~10 watts), speakers(~15 watts at current volume, gets out of hand when its cranked), screen(30 watts)

folding running 3dmarks 2005
CPU Q6600 @ 3.0
P35 DS3R Board
2x 1gig sticks of ram @ 1.8 volts(every bit counts no more 2 volts for me, gonna get 2 more sticks of that ram)
6 Hard drives (2x 250, 2x 320, 2x 500)
1 ODD
SB Audigy 2zs
WinTV PVR
Geforce 8800GTX(factory OC 600core 1400shaders 900[1.8ghz effective] ram)
Antec 900 with full set of fans (4 x 120mm low and 1 x 200mm low + cpu cooler 92mm fan 2200rpms)

Folding
XP 1800+
K7S5A 3.XX
512MB ram
120gig HDD
Geforce 4 ti4200(have to remove it as there is no use on a web/music machine, back to the TNT2 or maybe VirgeDX )
2 ODD's
P133 Case with 2 80mm(under volted) fans and 70mm(under volted TMD fan) CPU cooler

Thats all at the plug. so even my quad/8800 system is not that hungry.

nukemaster,

Great to see some real common sense stuff here. Tired of the 1000 watt frenzy posted by most.

Spread the word.....

Ultra is one of the worst PSU on earth. I bought a case of them and one even died in under 24 hours...I returned the whole case.
If you search around many people eith have them fail (often killing other parts of the system ) or at other times they work just fine.

It's was almost a 50/50 thing two years ago.
I recall FRY's ran a sale awhile back and they almost gave them away.

LOL i remember being at a lan part and someone was running and Ultra(some 500 watt see through pile of **** that looked like my no name 300 watt psu, i bet thats all i would put out too....) PSU and just plugging in a 120mm Antec fan cause all his case lights to dim down(they stayed dimmer then normal too).....

Looked just like this "Apevia" one



cwt 300 atx. they are damn close