In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips willbill said:
The efficiency at 10% load was in the Anandtech review
of the Corsair AX750 80 Plus Gold unit. See:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4011/corsair-ax750-80plus-gold
Yes, it is there. 82% at 10% load. Very nice (only
slightly marred by the Corsair ad on the same page).
by lowest price 1st; Both Corsair and Antec compete
at the low end and those cheap units are clearly not
as good as their high end units (80+ gold/platinum).
This is reasonably certain. What is far less certain is whether
the additional price (up to 10x) is worth paying, and for whom it
might be. $100 is not a trivial investment for all users. Those
with noisy power would probably be better to put it into a UPS.
Surges are best handled by first making sure your house ground is
solid, then by a whole-house MOV installed in the breaker panel.
I see a lot of competition in the PSU arena, with 80 PLUS and PFC
trying to establish a premium in a very skeptical market. I can see
why -- PFC started with TuV (German) 10+ years ago, but I've never
heard electric providers complain (as they do for industrial users).
The importance of Efficiency is more a matter of usage
patterns. Leaving a hipowered x86 system running, even idle
at ~100W seems a loser. Better to boot the box when it is
going to be used, then shutdown. Better also for MS OSes
which need periodic reboots. And MS has been improving boot
times which builders can improve further with SSDs.
If you need instant availability, consider a second low
power system (I use nettops) plugged into reasonable
kbds, mice & monitors. Through KVM if needed. 20W
-- Robert