Watts to Heat Ratio of a PSU

[wildrabbitt]

Hi,

I need to know how much of the X amount of Watts a PSU uses convert to heat.

Is this normally given in the specs for a PSU?

[retina]

Take 100%, subtract the rated efficiency, and multiply by the usage.

E.g. (100% - 80%) * 500W = 100W

But in reality all of the power gets converted to heat anyway.

[wildrabbitt]

Thanks Retina.

Is that right ? All the watts get converted to heat ?

Even the beep from POST speaker?

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by wildrabbitt

I need to know how much of the X amount of Watts a PSU uses convert to heat.

All of it...
All energy converts to heat one way or another, hehe...

Some of it does useful things for us, like pushing the car forward or lighting the room in the night, before converting to heat, but eventually all ends up as heat...

[wildrabbitt]

The locations of the heat conversion is what I need to take into consideration.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by wildrabbitt

The locations of the heat conversion is what I need to take into consideration.

Then in the case of the PSU, use the formula that retina gave. For other devices, ideally measure the power consumed. If that's not possible (often it's not directly) then go with the devices' power consumption ratings. As mentioned, it all ends up as heat at the end of the day.

As an aside, understanding the First and Second laws of thermodynamics is a very empowering tool.

[kladner]

Efficiency varies, depending on how heavily loaded the PSU is. I think a rule of thumb is that efficiency peaks around 50% load and trails off in the 85-100% range. This amount of this decline may be related to the rated efficiency of the supply.

If a supply has been reviewed by a technically equipped tester, there may be graphs of its power response. If you plan to run it hard all the time, the benefits of Gold or Platinum ratings increase, which is also true as the total power used increases. I consider that I am in the prime zone drawing a bit over 800 watts from a 1200 watt Platinum supply, on a machine which runs near 24/7.

[VictordeHolland]

80 Plus certification?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Plus

80Plus: 80% efficient between 20%-100% of (max) rated power
80Plus Bronze: 81% (20% load) 85% (50 %load) 81% (100% load)
80Plus Silver..etc.
80Plus Gold...
80Plus Platinum...
80Plus Titanium...

(see the table in the wikipedia article)

Notice that except for Titanium, they don't have efficiency requirements <20% load. An idle computer could very well be below 20% of the rated wattage of the PSU and be less efficient than 80% even though the PSU has a 80Plus certification.

PSUs with better 80Plus certification (>Silver) are usually more expensive for the same rated power. Depending on your usage and electricity costs, the break-even-point for a more efficient PSU can be months to many years.

Lesson from this: use a PSU which suits your needs (rated power and efficiency vs. costs), and don't lay too much emphasis on getting the most efficient PSU.

In the unlikely case that you are a 'save-the-planet' extremist, don't buy a computer at all! Lot's of energy used to delve the (rare) metals and production probably took place in China which heavily utilises coal plants!

[Mark Rose]

Originally Posted by VictordeHolland

PSUs with better 80Plus certification (>Silver) are usually more expensive for the same rated power. Depending on your usage and electricity costs, the break-even-point for a more efficient PSU can be months to many years.

Lesson from this: use a PSU which suits your needs (rated power and efficiency vs. costs), and don't lay too much emphasis on getting the most efficient PSU.

A reasonable rule of thumb is 1 watt of power costs $1/year ($0.09/kWh). Take a system that consumes 600 watts (two GPUs and a CPU), compare the power supply consumed watts at 50% load vs plain 80 Plus, and the US cost for a 750+ watt power supply (from pcpartpicker.com):

Unrated:          ???,                  $47
80 Plus:          750,                  $90 (base case for savings below)
80 Plus Bronze:   706, save  $50/year,  $60
80 Plus Silver:   682, save  $68/year,  $81
80 Plus Gold:     667, save  $83/year,  $77
80 Plus Platinum: 652, save  $98/year,  $99
80 Plus Titanium: 638, save $112/year, $377

If high loads will be running most of the time, it's a no-brainer to go with an 80 Plus Platinum power supply. It'll pay for the full cost of the unit in a year, or the upgrade price in a few months. That's not counting air conditioning savings.

If your power is really expensive (California, Germany, etc.), then the Titanium might make sense.

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by LaurV

All of it...
All energy converts to heat one way or another, hehe...

Some of it does useful things for us, like pushing the car forward or lighting the room in the night, before converting to heat, but eventually all ends up as heat...

Ah, entropy. Delightful.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by LaurV

All of it...
All energy converts to heat one way or another, hehe...

Really?

I would argue that some of it is converted to rest mass. Consider "heat" falling into a black hole, whether in the form of hot matter or electromagnetic or gravitational radiation. Assuming Hawking's mechanism is correct, some of that energy will come out in the form of particles such as electrons and neutrinos. What happens after that is very speculative indeed but a good case has been made for the future universe to consist primarily of positronium, equal numbers of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos and extremely low energy photons.

In the short term, of course, your approximation is an extremely good one.