Would you replace it? Old Rosewill Green 530W 80+

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

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Daox
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Joined: Tue Nov 25, 2008 11:54 am
Location: Wisconsin

Would you replace it? Old Rosewill Green 530W 80+

Post by Daox » Thu Oct 26, 2017 1:03 pm

I am looking into building a new system. It will be a higher performance office machine. I'm looking at something like a Ryzen 1500X, SSD, 16GB, no graphics card, virtually nothing else minus some occasional USB HDD use. I figure its no use mounting and powering a permanent HDD when I rarely use it now. The docks they have now are cheap and so easy to use. Anyway, I digress! I am looking into power supplies and if I want to reuse or replace my aging Rosewill Green 520W 80+ power supply that I picked up back in 2008!

I originally found the Seasonic SS-400FL2 fanless and thought that was the one! However, after viewing the actual power consumption on it versus the SS-350TGM TFX, it seems that the extra oomph isn't really worth it from an efficiency stand point. At the lower power consumption, which is quite common in office type work, the 350TGM is more efficient. I would have to assume the 400FL2 is quieter though.

Of course I also am wondering if the Rosewill 520W is just fine? The new setup will use drastically less power than the old setup. So, the fan will spin slower. Noise will probably not be an issue as it isn't currently. However, efficiency will probably suffer since it'll be operating at an even smaller fraction of its rated output. There is also the issue of its age. I'm not sure how long a power supply will last.

That does beg the question though, am I just splitting watts? Does this all boil down to the difference in 2-3 watts? The Rosewill is still doing the job just fine, but is there a better, quieter option? The answer is certainly, but is it worth it? This is where I open up the floor to you guys.

CA_Steve
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Re: Would you replace it? Old Rosewill Green 530W 80+

Post by CA_Steve » Thu Oct 26, 2017 3:32 pm

Daox wrote:That does beg the question though, am I just splitting watts? Does this all boil down to the difference in 2-3 watts? The Rosewill is still doing the job just fine, but is there a better, quieter option? The answer is certainly, but is it worth it? This is where I open up the floor to you guys.
Pretty close. :) Couldn't find any reviews of this product with lower load results. Let's say it's 70% efficient at 10% load. A newer 80+ Gold supply will be 80% or higher. So, for ~50W load, that's a difference of 5W of waste heat. I doubt your load will be higher than 100W...and there you are narrowing the range to maybe 5% difference, so still a 5W difference.

Age is a roll of the dice. It might last another 9 years or it might go out (and maybe take the mobo with it) in a year or two.

...and yeah, there are quieter PSUs...as many have semi-passive fan designs where the fan wouldn't spin for your load level.

Daox
Posts: 46
Joined: Tue Nov 25, 2008 11:54 am
Location: Wisconsin

Re: Would you replace it? Old Rosewill Green 530W 80+

Post by Daox » Sat Oct 28, 2017 7:03 am

I did some digging on my power supply. It seems its efficiency is better than what I thought. At this point its not worth replacing as long as its works.

Per this info:
Efficiency at 100% 82.01%
Efficiency at 50% 85.61%
Efficiency at 20% 84.72%
Not too shabby for a 10 year old power supply!

Now... I just have to look into quieting it down a bit more.

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