Both Desktops and Servers
Seeking advice for your best "buying guides" concerning power supply units.
I haven't shopped for one in years because haven't needed to, things like normal PSU calculators seem to indicate "X is enough watts" when other sources suggest overbuying by at least 20% (so the PSU never loads more than 80% for efficiency/durability) or more for future capacity. I'm wondering if the calculation part is different for a desktop (which will tend to be in one of three states - idle, cpu maxed/like transcoding, or cpu+gpu maxed/heavy gaming) as opposed to a server (with loads all over the place covering lets say 1 to 16 hard drives, and also that I think the hard drives are powered off 5v rails not 12v like cpu/gpu?) and what are the most important factors that go into choosing a power supply somewhere between a range of "adequate" and "excellent". (adequate meaning for instance - not overrepresenting real wattage, full protection circuitry, and similar - nothing that will kill hardware if it dies, but something maybe that is the minimum cost to get by for now if money is tight)
There's lots of individual PSU review sites - thats not what i'm seeking. Looking for the general education first - including whats new information/knowledge now. (like seeing Haswells need special consideration/and assumedly later models including the new Ryzens... or that modified sinewave UPS's dont work with Active power correction, though I cant find any answer on passive power correction)
Seeking advice for your best "buying guides" concerning power supply units.
I haven't shopped for one in years because haven't needed to, things like normal PSU calculators seem to indicate "X is enough watts" when other sources suggest overbuying by at least 20% (so the PSU never loads more than 80% for efficiency/durability) or more for future capacity. I'm wondering if the calculation part is different for a desktop (which will tend to be in one of three states - idle, cpu maxed/like transcoding, or cpu+gpu maxed/heavy gaming) as opposed to a server (with loads all over the place covering lets say 1 to 16 hard drives, and also that I think the hard drives are powered off 5v rails not 12v like cpu/gpu?) and what are the most important factors that go into choosing a power supply somewhere between a range of "adequate" and "excellent". (adequate meaning for instance - not overrepresenting real wattage, full protection circuitry, and similar - nothing that will kill hardware if it dies, but something maybe that is the minimum cost to get by for now if money is tight)
There's lots of individual PSU review sites - thats not what i'm seeking. Looking for the general education first - including whats new information/knowledge now. (like seeing Haswells need special consideration/and assumedly later models including the new Ryzens... or that modified sinewave UPS's dont work with Active power correction, though I cant find any answer on passive power correction)