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2000 Watt power supplies. Is there a point?
jackal
Fuck Yes. That is an orderly anal warehouse.Registered User regular
Fuck Yes. That is an orderly anal warehouse.Registered User regular
I've been seeing previews for 2000 watt power supplies. Is there any point to them beyond geek cred? I would think even the most insane set up would not push a 1000 watt power supply to its limits. If it ever actually hit full load it would trip most home breakers. Even with a 20 Amp circuit you would only be left with 200 watts.
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The outlet in your wall is only rated for 15 amps. That's for both plugs in the outlet.
So yes, it's just for the e-penis.
Are you sure about that? That is a 15/20 ampere circuit at 120 volts. The PSU should be able to output 2,000 watts, but how much current would it draw given that the power that it provides is at a much lower voltage than it gets from the outlet?
Woops, I was thinking 110 instead of 120 for some reason. So you have 400 watts left, but the only 20 amp circuits in my house are in the bathrooms, kitchen and garage. A purpose built home office would probably have a 20 amp circuit, but the point stands that under full load it would either trip your breaker, or leave you without much power for other things.
Also the thing would be a damn space heater. Wouldn't dissipating 2000 watts even for a few minutes be difficult for just about any PC case?
[Edit] Evidently I got 110V because the voltage is 120V+- 5%, and resistance in your home wiring can potentially bring it down to 110V.
Since pretty much all commercial/home use power supplies at that rating are switch mode power supplies, the question is actually how efficient the power supply is - not what the input/output voltage ratio is. For a theoretically 100% efficient switch mode power supply, even if you were spitting out 400A at 5V (2kW output), you would draw 16.7A at 120V (2kW power input, assuming no harmonics, 1.0 displacement power factor).
In practice, most power supplies are nowhere near 100% efficient (perhaps 50-80% efficient, depending on load), and the current draw from the wall can be anywhere from 20.8A to over 30A at full rating.
Based on this, I doubt 2kW supplies are for home use - perhaps for some server farms?
Nope, it is ATX.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/05/ultra-products-unveils-2000-watt-x3-atx-power-supply/
PSUs are NOT 100% efficient.
They are frequently around 60% to 70% efficient.
So if it can provide 2000 W, it's going to require a hell of a lot more than that.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
"ATX" is a specification from Intel - you can download the latest version here. It only states what characteristics a power supply needs to show to be able to call itself an "ATX" power supply - it doesn't actually say how a power supply should be implemented to meet those specifications.
A "switched mode power supply" is the most common implementation for "ATX" power supplies. As far as I know, all "ATX" power supplies are currently implemented as switched mode power supplies.
That was in response to, "perhaps for some server farms."
B.net: Kusanku
Ha, my mistake. Sorry.
Sounds pretty pointless at the minute, other than for bragging rights.
Look, my power bill was bigger than yours!
It would only matter if you were actually drawing 2000W on it - if you had a system that only drew 500W, it would only require that much power + inefficiency factor.
At my kW/Hr rate in the winter, it would be just over $100/mo to run that bastard at full load.
Man, I have 4 comps I typically run 24/7, all around 500W...I needs to start turning shit off when I'm not using it I guess
The average kW/hr across the US was 8 cents in 2005. Right now in NYC I've heard of 15 cents. I live outside of DC, in VA, so I pay 7 cents.
Thus, running that 2000w PSU 24/7 (at full load) would cost me $3.36/day, or $100.80 per month.
That's below the National average!
if I can even shave 30% off the cost of it, that really helps.
It's not 100% efficient and the national average is 8.9/kwh with 20.72/wkh being the highest. To keep from popping the circuit breaker it would have to be better than 84% efficient at 100% load. A good many of the 80plus psus are barely over 80% for the full load rating. Chances are you'd trip the breaker or burn your house down (old wiring) if you ran that thing at full load for any length of time.