Bigger PSUs increase electricity bill ?

[Serville]

Is it true that bigger PSU will consume more electricity ?
Some people say YES, others say NO.

If Yes/No, is this applied to all PSUs in general ?
Or is it a matter of circuitry inside the PSU, say cheaper PSUs might not have the circuitry and consume more power ?

[snvpa]

I think most power suppliues only consume as much power as you need. for example if your system was drawing 325 watts of power but you had a 550 watt suply you would still only use 325 watts of electricity.

[advanR]

I think the power the system actually draws matters. So if the same system uses a 600w pcp&c or a 250w generic it would draw the same.

Thats just a guess. It would be nice to see what larva thinks.

[advanR]

Yea i think we think the same thing.

[Tygur]

Originally posted by snvpa
I think most power suppliues only consume as much power as you need. for example if your system was drawing 325 watts of power but you had a 550 watt suply you would still only use 325 watts of electricity.
I agree with you here, but I would also like to say that the power supply itself will also draw some electricity (don't know how much), and expel it as heat.

[OC-Master]

Costs more on the electric bill. That is YES and NO.

First you got to remember that all PSUs have a specific ampage. Your power bill fluchuwaits WAY more from ampage than from wattage consumed.

A vacuum with 12 amps ran for 5 hours is equal to your computer running 24/7 for a month!


OC-Master

[Audioaficionado]

A larger PC PS will draw more when at idle but not much more because they are all designed to be efficient power converters. The main load is what the PC parts draw. When I installed my second cpu in my dual mobo, the power usage increased. When I added extra PCI cards it went up again. If I replaced my 350W PS with a 500W PS, I doubt there would be a significant increase as most of the power usage is my powered components. Where ever the most heat is produced in your PC, that's where the power is being used the most.

[larrymoencurly]

www.silentpcreview.com tests PSUs at light, medium, and maximum loads and measures the efficiency with each. I don't think they've found big differences in efficiency with load.