Any disadvantage to a larger power supply.

PSUs: The source of DC power for all components in the PC & often a big noise source.

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thrax
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Joined: Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:50 am

Any disadvantage to a larger power supply.

Post by thrax » Wed Mar 27, 2013 4:18 pm

I was planning on purchasing the Kingwin LZP-550 for my gaming machine and I saw that newegg has the LZP-850 on sale for cheaper than the 550. Would there be any disadvantage to getting the larger PSU? Not really the best when it comes to electricity, would it draw more power/create more heat? Or would it just depend on what the system demands?

CA_Steve
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Re: Any disadvantage to a larger power supply.

Post by CA_Steve » Wed Mar 27, 2013 7:29 pm

The higher wattage PSU may be less efficient at your idle/low load levels than the lower wattage one.

An extreme example LZP-550 vs LZP-1000:
Power lost as heat vs load @ low load to 90W for the 550W is 7-8W, for the 1000W it's 14W
At 200W load, the LZP-550 has 13W of heat loss, the 1000W uses 15W
At 300W load, they are both around 21W.
Above 300W, the LZP-1050 is more efficient than the 550W.

Figure the LZP-850 is somewhere between those two.

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