250W 80 Plus Gold PSU?

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budec

Gawd
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Jul 10, 2002
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Anyone know were I can *buy* a ~250W 80 plus Sliver or Gold PSU? Best I've been able to find is a Bronze.
 
I'm not aware of any. The closest thing you'll find is the Seasonic X-400FL. The most economical option however would be the 550W Kingwin Lazer Gold or NZXT Hale 90 (they're both pretty much the same thing).
 
Zero82z said:
I'm not aware of any. The closest thing you'll find is the Seasonic X-400FL. The most economical option however would be the 550W Kingwin Lazer Gold or NZXT Hale 90 (they're both pretty much the same thing).
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Yea, I really like the seasonic. The problem with that, is lower than 20% load is unknown in efficiency; but typically drops off very fast. If you got an Atom server (with disks) or such; that can draw maybe 50-75W at full load or less if idle.

A 80 Plus Gold in the 100-200W range would be prefect. Most of them don't go under 250W though if you want a "real" PSU (ATX formfactor).
 
The reason there aren't many lower-wattage high-efficiency PSUs is because the cost for making one is about the same as for making a higher-wattage unit, so it makes more sense to just label it with a higher power rating. However, an 80Plus Gold PSU should still be more efficient than an 80Plus standard or Bronze-rated unit at low loads.
 
JaYp146 said:
PicoPSUs are pretty efficient and entirely noiseless. Here's a 160w (200w) peak model: http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-160...J9ZLmzpNNMNGg7D6NFKnbnP5nLnT912NPL!-870554906 Supposedly, they're 92% efficient.
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PicoPSUs are efficient because they are simply DC-DC converters. However, the efficiency of the power brick they are connected to must also be taken into consideration. The total efficiency is not as good as 92% and probably ends up being somewhere in the 80s.
 
Zero82z said:
PicoPSUs are efficient because they are simply DC-DC converters. However, the efficiency of the power brick they are connected to must also be taken into consideration. The total efficiency is not as good as 92% and probably ends up being somewhere in the 80s.
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Ah, I see.
 
Unfortunately most of the Gold rated PSUs at low wattage are either obscure impossible to find models, or OEM models found in Dells and HPs that don't necessarily use standard ATX.

(Source: 80Plus.org)
 
Yea, I think the AC adapters (at best) are around 84%. Not certain the exact math, but if you average them you get 92+84/2 = 88% - which is still really good.

But it's probably more more cumulative, like 92% of 84% - or: ~77.28%

Again, that's best case under prefect conditions.
 
budec said:
Yea, I think the AC adapters (at best) are around 84%. Not certain the exact math, but if you average them you get 92+84/2 = 88% - which is still really good.

But it's probably more more cumulative, like 92% of 84% - or: ~77.28%

Again, that's best case under prefect conditions.
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The +12V is derived directly from the brick, so the efficiency of that rail is exactly the brick's efficiency. The other rails are generated on the PicoPSU, so the cumulative efficiency would be its efficiency multiplied by the efficiency of the brick (which would come out to 77.28% as you said, based on those numbers).
 
The low power output PSUs are very difficult to design due to the multi-outputs and ratio of 12V to other rails. As far as we know, aside from single output or OEM and proprietary form factors, the X-400FL is the lowest powered 80PLUS GOLD on the market as of right now. This PSU also comes with no moving part (ie, fan) to help increase lifetime and reliability. (sorry for the sales pitch....)

Yes, the PSU efficiency drops fairly quickly below 20% but this is inherent in all PSU.

Adapter can be solution, but you will need a D-D module to convert to usable voltages.
 
Thanks for the info; like I said the seasonic looks really nice - but:

Seasonic Rep said:
Yes, the PSU efficiency drops fairly quickly below 20% but this is inherent in all PSU.
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If I'm only using 50 Watts; out of 400 that is 12.5% load. Idle will be less. Do you have any data on how your PSU performs under 20% load?

Like you said, most PSUs drop off quickly. In most cases I would figure that a Brozne 100 Watt is going to be better at 50W load than a 400 Watt Gold (or even Platinum!) PSU with that same load.

Adapter can be solution, but you will need a D-D module to convert to usable voltages.
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I never heard of this, do you have any more info?

Also are there any shorterm plans for Seasonic making a sub 250Watt Sliver or Gold PSU? I would buy one :)
 
budec said:
I never heard of this, do you have any more info?
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I think that is the PicoPSU, or something similar. An Adaptor externally (120V-->12V) + an internal DC-DC board to transform that 12V into 12V, 5V, & 3.3V.
 
Frankly I'm not sure why the efficiency matters at that low a wattage. It will have almost nil impact on your power bill.
 
NKDietrich said:
Frankly I'm not sure why the efficiency matters at that low a wattage. It will have almost nil impact on your power bill.
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Thats exactly my thoughts on it, your going to have a few watt different at best. Unless you are running multiple systems....in which case, why not use a single power supply to run multiple atom based systems.
 
The upside to all of this is if your system is only burning 50 watts even an 80% efficient PSU is only going to burn an extra 10 watts of power. The difference at the end of the day is not worth the cost of an extremely expensive PSU. I would just buy a high quality PSU like the SeaSonic SS-300ET mentioned above and call it a day.
 
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