How to choose between a 80+ bronze and a 80+ gold power supply?
- Calculate approximately how many hours you are using you computer per week
- Find how much a kWh costs at your area
- Use the tables below to find how many weeks it would take an 80+ Gold power supply to pay for the cost difference over an 80+ Bronze power supply
Example 1:
Let’s say you are using a 450W power supply and each kWh costs you $0.1. You are using your computer approximately 8h per day (56h per week).
It will take approximately 333 weeks (6.5 years) for the 80+ Gold power supply to pay for the cost difference over an 80+ Bronze power supply.
Example 2:
Let’s say you are using a 450W power supply and each kWh costs you $0.1. You are using your computer approximately 24h per day (168h per week).
It will take approximately 111 weeks (2.15 years) for the 80+ Gold power supply to pay for the cost difference over an 80+ Bronze power supply.
So, should you always prefer bronze over gold?
The answer is NO. You have to taken into account some other factors like:
- More efficient power supplies emit less heat. As a result they produce less noise. If you are interested in building a silent PC a more efficient (and expensive) power supply may be what you need.
- Assuming we are comparing two models of the same manufacturer, more efficient power supplies tend to have components of higher quality. Which makes them a better choice for your expensive (?) computer.
References:
- ExtremeTech analysis
- Reddit discussion
