SeaSonic S12-430, better on so many fronts!

cstup · Post by **cstup** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:39 pm

I recently installed a S12-430 in my main Windows machine (Prescott 2.8GHz, 6600GT-AGP, 3 HD's) replacing a cheap offbrand power supply ("CodeGen" 450W that came with the old case.) With no other changes, not only is the SeaSonic whisper quiet and cool, a side effect of the efficiency is the reduced load on my UPS.

Previously the UPS indicated that my machine (and monitor) was a 229W load, with 27 minutes runtime at 100% battery. After the upgrade to the S12, with no other changes (at idle):

Thats the equivilent of a 100W lamp just burning away to heat. With my local electric utility working out to ~ $0.0615/kwh, thats a savings of approximately $4.40/month, never mind the reduced cooling my computer room requires now.

The power supply will pay for itself in the first year!

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:56 pm

Part of it is probably that the Seasonic is more efficient. In all likelyhood, the bigger factor is probably that the Seasonic has APFC and your old PS didn't.

BTW, that's a pretty nice GUI for a UPS--what model is it, and how much $$$?

mantralord · Post by **mantralord** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:08 pm

As mentioned, while the Seasonic is more efficient, most of the extra battery time you got was from the Active PFC.

EsaT · Post by **EsaT** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:32 pm

Beyonder wrote:In all likelyhood, the bigger factor is probably that the Seasonic has APFC and your old PS didn't.

I would say that at least 2/3 of difference comes from ActivePFC.
If your old PSU would have wasted say half of that difference as heat because of worser efficiency PSU would have been already hot at idle load.
(at least there's one good thing in reactive power... it doesn't produce heat)

Now does anyone wonder why PFC has been mandatory in Europe?

cstup · Post by **cstup** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:56 pm

My point was that for whatever reason (APFC or just a more efficient design) the SeaSonic S12 is top notch. I'm sure other APFC equipped power supplies would also have a similar effect, but I was just trying to speak to my experience with the S12.

The UPS is just a APC BackUPS XS 1500. I've been pretty happy with it as well, needing a new battery after about 2.5 years.

merlin · Post by **merlin** » Sun Aug 20, 2006 2:05 am

Beyonder wrote:Part of it is probably that the Seasonic is more efficient. In all likelyhood, the bigger factor is probably that the Seasonic has APFC and your old PS didn't.

BTW, that's a pretty nice GUI for a UPS--what model is it, and how much $$$?

That's the standard APCC Powerchute UPS GUI that comes with most APC ups's. I have a Backups RS-900 myself, awesome device and slightly better than the XS series that was mentioned. Just to mention, APFC helps with the UPS wattage detection, but doesn't affect personal home electricity bills since we're not billed on apparent power, only actual power used(which isn't affected by pfc). This just keeps reminding me the 156 watts my ups detects could probably be dropped under 100 watts with a better psu...

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 7:57 am

Just goes to show you how different things can be. I got the lowest end APC UPS and it doesn't have the software and my run time is less than 2 mins WITHOUT the montior on a Athlon XP overclocked and a Seasonic 400W PS.

Of course it keeps my PC from rebooting when the AC dips for 5 seconds which is much more common than a long term outage for me.

I might buy a nicer UPS and move this cheapo to my DVR just because it takes so unbeleivably long for the DVR to reboot and load the MOXI software.