Does a 500 watt power supply always deliver 500 watts?
Does a 500 watt power supply always deliver 500 watts?
I'm a French Canadian who moved to the Philippines and noticed a tower with an A8-7680. It seems to have 8GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a power supply that's either 500 or 1000 watts. The seller mentioned using a 500 or 1000 watt Chinese PSU. My question is whether the PSU will consistently draw 500 or 1000 watts from the outlet or if it will only supply the power needed for the APU, the SSD, and the fan on top of the heatsink. I'm not entirely sure about using local power, especially since the Philippines uses coal power there, while my province in Canada relies on hydroelectricity. If anyone can clarify this confusing question, I'd really appreciate it. Take care and have a great day.
No, it does not.
It pulls what it needs.
A power supply will only pull
the electricity demanded by your PC's components
– and so while it might be a waste of money up front to purchase a larger power supply than you need, it won't cost you any more to operate your PC because of it or at least not enough to matter. There is always some amount of loss regardless of whether you are operating in the PSU's most efficient range or not. It is usually slightly worse at low power draw levels.
The PSU changes AC to DC. When the required DC power is just 45W, the entire output remains at that level.
Add a small margin for the conversion process that is lost due to heat.
Refer to the chart in this article —
https://help.corsair.com/hc/en-us/articl...-Explained
The power supply rating influences the efficiency loss, just like the design load percentage does. Using a 1000W supply that only consumes 100W would be less efficient compared to a 250W supply operating at 40%.
Correct. But also, unless it's an extremely low quality and inefficient unit, which could happen if it's a "chinese" power supply (which is amusing because all ATX power supplies are made in China, but we recognize the distinction between "made in China" and "Chinese brand PSU") or just not a good model, in most situations the loss amount isn't significant enough to concern you about your power bill. If your system only requires 85w at that moment, the difference between what it needs and what it actually uses/losses would be around a few dollars per year.
Thank you, that matches exactly what I expected, have a wonderful day.