this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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That's true.
Unrelated but I wish it was easier to find lower-wattage PSUs. My local PC store doesn't have anything under 650W. I know modern GPUs use a lot of power, but not all PCs use a GPU! I have a home server where 400W would be more than enough, yet the smallest I could find was 550W, in stock from just one manufacturer (Be Quiet).
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).
It runs fine, it's just less efficient.
Where are you getting this from? Intuition?
I think the quiescent current and losses are less in a well engineered psu.
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.
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.