News - Seasonic claims Gold standard with new X-series PSUs

[HEXUS]

90 per cent efficiency and a modular design.

Read more.

[amdavies]

With the current push for efficiency, saving electricity, greener computing et al. where are the mainstream low wattage 80%+ PSUs ?
550W, 650W and 750W equate to 110W, 130W and 150W at the 20% load range; that's more than many desktops under full load.

The new Mac mini is meant to idle at less than 13 watts, that could be the power loss due to inefficiencies for many PSUs on such low power draw systems.
Take the 80% efficient Corsair VX450W (a very good PSU);
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article751-page4.html
According to the above figures, with a 21.5 W output (less than the Mac mini needs at idle and the lowest figure published) it's reportedly drawing 35 W from the wall with a calculated efficiency of 61.3%. If you bring the power draw down to the Mac mini's 13W idle, then I'm guessing the efficiency is going to be lower still, all of a sudden that 87% is looking quite far away.
N.B.The power draw at the wall is a bit higher than it would be here as running equipment at 120V AC isn't as efficient as running it at 240V AC.
There are options for low power computers, so it can be done if the manufacturers wanted to, but they're not standard formats, which creates its own issues, and aren't being publicized enough.
The race for efficiency is all well and good but not at such high power draws. When you have PSUs that can run 5 quad core machines by themselves: 5 Full Systems on 1 x Real Power M1000W then something needs to be looked at.

[Sumanji]

Yo,

These have retail availability now (supposedly) - any chance of a review?

Cheers,

Su

[UseItNow]

I'll ditto amdavies, we need lower wattage ones too!