Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Can You Trust 80 Plus?”.
For a long time, we’ve treated 80 plus as the gold standard when it comes to judging the quality of a power supply, but 80 plus has borne criticism over the years for being a very incomplete way to think about power supplies. And now it looks like a new Challenger could be gaining Traction in the PSU certification Market. But let’s start by explaining exactly what 80 plus is for. Those of you who are new to the space or maybe just forgot 80 plus, is a certification that power supplies can get for hitting certain power efficiency targets to qualify. A power supply has to convert at least 80 percent of the incoming power to actual power that your computer can use at loads of 20, 50 and 100.
In other words, the power supply has to be 80 percent efficient. For example, let’s say you have a 750 watt power supply at 50 load, meaning the components are drawing 375 watts. The power supply itself can’t draw more than 469 Watts, since 375 is 80 of 469. nice.
The extra watch that is not getting to the components is lost to waste heat or goes back to the grid to get a higher 80 plus rating like bronze, gold or platinum. The efficiency at each load Point has to be greater, which not only means bigger savings. On your power bill but usually implies that the power supply itself is made with better quality components. That will last you a longer time. This sounds straightforward, but there are some real holes in the 80 plus system that cannot only mislead buyers, but that some manufacturers have used to game the system. We’Ll tell you what they are right after. We think brilliant for sponsoring this video brilliant is a Hands-On, interactive way to learn stem topics. They offer thousands of courses with new topics to learn each month like their Everyday Math course, simply honing your ability to learn and think will translate into everyday aspects of Life.
Their services can be used to supplement a college education or you can use them if getting smart is just a passion of yours. The first 200 people who head to brilliant.org techwiki, will get 20 off an annual premium subscription. One big issue with 80 plus is the Paradigm of only testing power supplies at three specific load levels, while the idea behind it makes sense take samples from light, moderate and heavy workloads. The amount of stress you put on your power supply is highly variable, meaning 80 plus might not be a good indicator of how your PSU will behave under the conditions that you specifically use it for, but even worse, is that, because power supply manufacturers know that they’re Only going to be graded on these three points, with the exception being titanium certified units, they can specifically tune their power supplies to be impressively efficient at those three points only with more lackluster performance in most other situations. This is a particular issue when the computer is at or near idle where it probably remains much of the time and where many power supplies see their efficiencies drop well below 80 percent, and there are also concerns around the testing process itself. As it’s been reported that manufacturers have sent Cherry Picked or even specially built units offer verification that are not representative of what most customers would be buying. That’S why there have been plenty of instances of 80 plus models that didn’t hit the proper efficiency targets when they were independently tested by Third parties. The manufacturers are basically cheating not to mention that there have been 80 plus certified units made with shoddy components resulting in high failure rates, as well as some models that got certified once then, they switched to cheaper components, but unscrupulously kept the 80 plus sticker on the Box and another thing, 80 plus certification tells you nothing about whether important safety features are present or whether the power delivered is clean enough for more aggressive overclocking.
So, if 80 plus has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese, why do we even pay attention to it in the first place? Well, we’re not saying that 80 plus is useless or a scam. It’S fine as a starting point when you’re looking to buy a PSU, but in addition to the 80 plus rating, you should find reviews from folks who know what they’re talking about, preferably involving a tear down and look at the components inside the PSU to make sure That your power supply won’t fail or explode on you when you’re putting it through its paces and we’re hoping that the situation gets uh at least a little bit better in the near future, with the new cybernetics rating system gaining popularity. In fact, they’ve already rated over a thousand different models, although the cybernetics procedure doesn’t address every weakness of 80 plus it tests a huge number of wattage loads, meaning you get a better idea as to the power Supply’s overall efficiency, while still using the same familiar certification Levels as 80 plus additionally cybernetics ratings take into account vampire power, which is how much power the PSU wastes. While your system is actually turned off and they even give out a separate rating for noise, so you can quickly confirm that your power supply won’t sound. Like a turbo prop, but remember that the cybernetic system still doesn’t say much about the overall reliability of the components so yeah, rather than buying a just released power supply, it’s probably best to let someone with more money than you be the guinea pig get something you Can trust .