When will PSUs hit 1KW?

[Ruggerbugger]

In my time owning computers people have asked me why we need/want 1GHz processors, then the same for 1GB of RAM or ever bigger hard drives. I've noticed PSU capacities creeping up recently, especially with graphics cards requiring first one and then (in some cases) two auxilliary power connectors, or a higher power slot such as PCI-E. A recent 680W power supply started me thinking. When will PSU capacities hit 1KW, and what will we do with all that power?

Or, will the situation reach breaking point, driving people to lower power SFF systems or more distriubted, low-power embedded devices throughout the home?

[Dorza]

I hope they dont. At least i hope we're not forced to have 1KW PSUs due to hardware requirements. Can you imagine running that for all day, every day? It would probably but an increase on ur power bill.

[Butcher]

A 1KW load costs about £2 a day if you run it 24/7 - that's about 3 times th cost of a current computer (excluding monitor)!
You'd be looking at an extra £~40 a month...

[Ruggerbugger]

Do you think that the trend towards distributed systems e.g. multicore/multiprocessor computers (or clusters of lower speed CPUs), multicore graphics cards (or SLI and multiple disk drives, will continue into PSUs? Could we see a RAID-type array of PSUs?

[Butcher]

We'll dual PSUs are already avaialble in some high end systems for fault tolerance, i'm not sure how much expansion of that we'll see.

[iranu]

I think that as prices continue to tumble for half decent hardware that will do internet/music/video etc, we will see (and I believe we all ready are) a trend towards SFF boxes in each room of your house. Apple mini mac?

They will all connected wirelessly or via a network built into the house. All of these will be silent, low power devices that can be clustered to enable enough cpu power for gaming etc. Chips are cheaps as chips nowadays.

So unless we start seeing new devices that take up lots of power or silly graphics card setups I would be surprised to see a 1K PSU. Q-tec prove me wrong.

[Butcher]

Well PC&C have announced an 850W PSU so we're not far off.

[iranu]

Well PC&C have announced an 850W PSU so we're not far off.

I can't believe that any one would need this unless running a massive server. I have to admit that these manufacturers are quoting peak power as opposed to what the psu can deliver for a sustained time which is more important.

I have a Tagan 480w and I run 2x sata, 1x pata, 1x dvd rom, 1x cd writer, floppy, 9700pro, 1x 120mm case fan, 1x 80mm case fan. The psu still has the capacity to run another 6 drives or whatever.

Quality > Quantity

[Butcher]

My Tagan 480 runs pretty warm and it's quite loaded - SLI setups really burn the juice (looking at over 200W for just the GPUs at load).

[davidstone28]

1KW is completely unncessary.

If anyone releases a desktop/homeuser/enthusiast based PSU with that power rating, its not out of necessity but borne entirely out of marketing and 'one upsmanship'.

A high quality '300W' rated PSU will run, at a guess 95% of the PCs on this forum.
A high quality '400W' rated PSU will run, your dual graphics cards, 6 HDDs, your 25 bling bling fans and power up a couple of nuclear reactors.

The whole 'I need a 500W PSU' thing is SUCH A MYTH. Borne out of bragging rights by people who don't know better than out of realism or necessity.

[Jon-E-Durex]

my pc keep dieing because i have 350w which isn't enough power. I get BSOD's, freezes, resets and its not just the psu, tried it in a different system and it works fine.

I can see why people need more power, my system isn't too over the top, 4 hd's, 2 dvd wriers, getting 2 gfx (6800 ultra's maybe ... ), cathode's, fan controllers, raid, external crap which runs off usb, sound card, external sound card, etc ...

I did on on-line power guide and it said i need 525w psu minium, so I cold see that in the future it may be needed, at the minute there building 2 * gfx cards in 1, which means if u sli them you could run 4 gfx's in the pc, maybe a bit over the top for the everyday user, but that would need a fair bit of power to run ...

[TDK]

as has been said before most computers comsume less than 300w, the reason you need say a 400w psu is that you may need more power on the 12v rail. Most psu's are rated at 25C so if your computer is running at 40C you are going to loose about a third of its power a 500w psu will become a 350w one.

btw Tagan have just released a 600w psu

[Butcher]

Before I got the Tagan I ran a 300W PSU with some pretty mad overclocking going without any issues. I don't think a 300W would cope with the SLI, but unless you're running dual 6800GT/Us you really don't need more than 300W.

[weebroonieuk]

butcher where do you find out the costs of electricity per hour sort of thing ?
i am going to buy one of those little power usage meters from maplins which u plug into a socket then plug whatever appliance into it and it measures the amount of load in watts and other stuff

just to see how all my goodies are affecting the lecky bill

as for my supply , im running 4 drives one of which is a raptor 2 dvd writers a 9500 modded and clocked to and past a 9700 an athlon xp 2500m overclocked to 2.6 ghz
and one fan in the system , but i only plug it in dureing the day and take it out at night
all on a 400w power supply

my voltage lines are a little low so i will be getting a new psu when a very good watercooled or completely silent one becomes available

[Kumagoro]

Watercooled PSU doesnt sound very safe.......

[BlueMagician]

...where do you find out the costs of electricity per hour sort of thing ?...

Electricity is sold in 1kW/H units - that is the cost of running something that draws 1kW of power, for one hour.
Your electricity supplier will specify the cost of 1kW/H unit on your bill, and units are usually cheaper over night, so you must remember to factor this in your 24/7 calculations.

HTH,
S.