Analyzing Power Use: 80 Plus Bronze vs. Platinum
by Jarred Walton on October 30, 2013 8:40 PM ESTI’ve been toying around with updating my computer lately, and one of the topics I wanted to look at was the choice of power supply. For the most part, we’ve long since moved beyond the days where power supplies that cost under $60 are garbage. There are plenty of decent power supplies available, particularly if you don’t mind taking a step down from the latest and greatest in terms of efficiency. Anyway, I was helping a friend put together a new PC the other day and it got me curious.
First, let’s start with the system build he put together, with some input from me. Note that many of the parts were selected based on price and availability on Amazon.com, as that’s where he wanted to purchase the parts (with his Amazon Prime account). In some cases, prices have changed since the purchase a week ago, so shop around as needed. Also note that he used a GTX 780, but I’ve also run some power use tests with just the iGPU as well as with a low-end Radeon HD 7750.
Custom-Built Intel Haswell PC | ||
Component | Description | Price |
Processor |
Intel Core i5-4670K (Quad-core 3.4-3.8GHz, 6MB L3, 22nm, 84W) |
$220 |
Motherboard | ASRock Z87M PRO4 (mATX) | $135 |
Memory |
Corsair Vengeance 2x8GB DDR3-1866 (9-10-9-27, CMY16GX3M2A1866C9) |
$190 |
NVIDIA Graphics |
EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB (2304 CUDA Cores at 967-1020MHz, 6GHz GDDR5) |
$520 |
AMD Graphics |
Sapphire Radeon HD 7750 1GB (Alternative GPU) (512 Cores at 800MHz, 4.5GHz GDDR5) |
$85 |
Integrated Graphics |
Intel HD Graphics 4600 (20 EUs at 350-1200MHz) |
N/A |
SSD | Corsair Neutron 256GB | $187 |
HDD | Western Digital 2TB Mainstream (WDBH2D0020HNC) | $80 |
Optical Drive | ASUS 24X DVDRW SATA (DRW-24B1ST) | $22 |
Case | Silverstone PS07B (mATX) | $79 |
Power Supply | Antec EA-450 Platinum (450W) | $70 |
Power Supply | Cooler Master GX-450 (450W Bronze) (Alternative) | $49 |
Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (OEM) | $89 |
Total Price (not including tax or shipping, with GTX 780 and Platinum PSU) | $1592 |
Now I’m not equipped to tell you about the quality of voltage regulation, ripple, or anything like that, but I happened to have a 450W 80 Plus Bronze PSU that I could use as a comparison point, so I asked if I could take some quick measurements once the system was put together. He agreed, and I ran through a few typical scenarios, summarized in the table below. (Note that I had to use a Molex to 8-pin PEG power adapter in order to run the GTX 780 on the old Thermaltake PSU; everything worked, but that wouldn’t be a solution I’d be comfortable with long-term.)
Bronze vs. Platinum System Power Draw (Kill-A-Watt) | |||
Test Load |
Thermaltake Litepower 450W |
Antec EA-450 EarthWatts Platinum |
24/7 Yearly Savings |
iGPU – Idle | 34 | 27 | 61.4 kWh (~$7.68) |
iGPU – Cinebench Single-Core | 63 | 55 | 70.1 kWh (~$8.76) |
iGPU – Cinebench Multi-Core | 96 | 86 | 87.7 kWh (~$10.96) |
iGPU – Cinebench OpenGL | 103 | 92 | 96.4 kWh (~$12.05) |
AMD 7750 – Idle | 45 | 38 | 61.4 kWh (~$7.68) |
AMD 7750 – 3DMark | 131 | 121 | 87.7 kWh (~$10.96) |
NVIDIA 780 – Idle | 48 | 41 | 61.4 kWh (~$7.68) |
NVIDIA 780 – 3DMark | 348 | 325 | 201.6 kWh (~$25.20) |
For power costs, we’re looking at the worst-case scenario of leaving a system on 24/7, which really isn’t realistic unless you’re talking about a server. For a typical PC that’s on eight hours a day, using the US national average price for electricity ($0.125 per kWh), we’re looking at electrical savings of anywhere from $2.56 to $8.40 per year. That may not seem like much, but considering any decent power supply should last five years and you’re looking at $12.80 to $42 in savings. That’s for a $21 difference in upfront costs, which is much smaller than what we’ve seen in the past for the most efficient power supplies – and note that the price difference tends to grow substantially when you’re shopping for 800-1200W PSUs, though that’s perhaps a topic for another day.
For a system that mostly sits idle, you won’t quite break even by going with an 80 Plus Platinum power supply. However, if there’s a graphics card installed and you do a moderate amount of gaming you should eventually come out ahead. More extreme use cases (e.g. 24/7 Folding@Home) start to rapidly recover the initial investment in a quality power supply, and when you consider the reduced heat and noise that comes with having a more efficient PSU, it’s definitely a worthwhile upgrade. Not all 80 Plus Platinum power supplies are created equal, of course, but generally speaking the electronics and engineering required to get that certification also come with a higher level of quality than what you’ll find in lower efficiency PSUs.
As far as the above system build is concerned, I like most of the component selections, but I’m not totally sold on the case. The Silverstone PS07B looks nice enough, but getting all of the wires connected can be a bit difficult at times. The SSD location on the bottom in particular is a bit of a pain, and the power supply location at the top has some silliness to go with it. The PSU location appears designed to work with the PSU upside down (i.e. fan facing upwards and drawing in fresh air), but the manual for the case notes that if you have a PSU with a 120mm or larger fan, they recommend installing it with the fan facing down. I'm not sure that I've ever seen a PSU with a fan smaller than 120mm where you have ventilation through the bottom, but whatever. If you follow the manual’s instructions, that means the ventilation holes in the top of the case along with the magnetic dust filter are completely pointless. I ignored the instructions and installed the power supply in the most sensible manner for the case, but my advice is to look at some of the other good mATX cases.
The Silverstone PS07B isn’t a bad case, but it’s not perfect either, and for the price I think you can do better. (Apologies to my friend for his taste in cases….) For mATX, I’d at least give the BitFenix Prodigy M or Corsair’s Obsidian 350D a look. If you want a larger case, there are tons of options to sort through, depending on what you're after. Other changes you might consider include sticking with 8GB RAM (2x4GB) initially, going with a midrange GPU like a GeForce GTX 770 or Radeon R9 280X, and there are quite a few motherboard options to consider as well. The i5-4670K still strikes a nice balance between price and performance, and with a bit of overclocking you can stretch its legs a bit further.
Anyway, that’s my little two-for-one special for the day: a quick look at the difference in power use you can expect from 80 Plus Bronze vs. Platinum (obviously 80 Plus Silver and Gold will be closer in power use, but they’re also closer in price), along with a list of parts that I’ve recently used in a friend’s PC. If you have any recommendations or complaints with the build, sound off in the comments.
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otherwise - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
The biggest problem I've had with newegg recently is we received two packages from them with a roach in the box.fic2 - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
Did they charge extra for the roach? If not why complain about a freebie?extide - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
I don't think he was talking about THAT kind of roach ;)1Angelreloaded - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
Spend the extra 50$ and get a Maximus Gene from Asus.Samus - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
I find that statement kind of insulting. First of all, Asrock is considerably better than MSI, Gigabyte or eVGA. I have this same motherboard and have my 4670k overclocked to 4.4GHz and memory clocked at 2133MHz. Completely stable in Prime95 and hours on end in BF4.The only board I would have taken over the Z87M Pro would be the Asus Z87 Deluxe (which cost $60 more.)
mike silk - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
Excuse me asrock is Asus budget brand. Also look around the best overclock results are typically found using a Gygabyte or an Asus board. I've had more success and stability using gigabyte. 4.4ghz is a walk in the park even an air cooled x58 i7 can do it with it beinga black edition. As for psu stable power can make or breake a a good build , I had hdds failing left right and centre because my apparently 1000w 80+ psu was a budget piece of crap the was only managing 700wHomeles - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
Excuse me, you're ignorant. ASRock is *not* ASUS's budget brand. It was spun off from the company 3 years ago.1Angelreloaded - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
They have a higher failure rate than MSI, which is bad.creed3020 - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
ASRock boards continue to impress me in the last year. Have you actually used one or is your obvious bias leading you to make the same old decisions just out of spite?Their FM2 boards have been at the heart of 3 HTPCs that I've built for friends and their BIOS is just fantastic compared to other out there...cough..Gigabyte...cough..
The integrated CIR header on the board is also something you won't find on many other competitor boards.
Give them a shot and you might just be surprised as to how much has changed!
extide - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
x2 I have built several, like 6-8, systems on ASRock boards recently and honestly they are my new fav mobo manufacturer. They are great boards and have a lot of features for the price. Excellent overall IMO.