Well, on the top of my head.. PSUs in the PC space tend to be designed so that the efficiency sort of plateaus at half of its rated Wattage. So this could be some incentive to use higher rated power supplies as it will be drawing less power off the wall although reality is that it wont scratch much off your monthly power bill.
Well it all depends on your usage, right? Let's use my computer and usage patterns as an example.
2600K@4.5GHz, single GTX 560Ti @stock, two HDDs, two SSDs
I'm thinking my highest load, which is during gaming, is probably around 300W-ish. Otherwise, I'm around 120W-ish. All numbers pulled out of nether regions. :sneaky:
In the past week I've probably spent no more than around 8 hours gaming. The computer has probably been idling (web browsing, watching streaming vids, being AFK) around 80 hours (rough estimate, I do turn it off every night and I put it into sleep mode if I know I'm going to be AFK for more than an hour).
I think I would be better served with something like that Seasonic 360W Gold PSU than a 600W unit.
On the flip side, some kid home on break and spending literally 12 hours a day actually IN game may see more efficiency out of a higher wattage unit.
The other thing is how do we KNOW that 50% is where all PSUs are the most efficient? We don't. 50% is just one of three points (20/50/100) where ECOS tests for 80Plus efficiency. For all we know the peak efficiency of one given PSU can be 60% while another PSU may be 80%.
Thoughts to ponder. :hmm:
Abit OT... but a more efficient lighting system at home could probably save more bucks than optimizing your desktop PC
This is true. I'm sure there are probably (I'm too scared to look ) some forums out there for light bulb enthusiasts where people are talking about this kind of stuff.