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Topic: Potnoodlemining: Power Supply Efficency Trials (Read 602 times)

legendary
Activity: 952
Merit: 1000
February 05, 2014, 09:20:09 PM
#2
Your crazy high payback period is because 80Plus Platinum PSUs are still hella expensive. I think upgrading from Bronze to Gold is a much better alternative.

I'm going to make some guesses, but swapping your PSU from Bronze to Platinum moved you from 84% to 91% efficient, and saved you 34W. Moving from Bronze to Gold would move you from 84% to 89%, and probably save you 25W. The advantage here is that Gold PSUs aren't that much more expensive than Bronze ones are, unlike Platinum.

Also remember, the more power you're pulling, the more efficiency pays off. You're only talking about pulling 500W. If you're looking at two 1200W PSUs, and plan on running them max out, moving from Bronze to Platinum moves you from 82% to 89%, which moves you from 1465W to 1350W, which saves you 115W. Means you're saving more on your power bill. Again, it all boils down to how expensive the initial hardware costs are to see if they're worth it.
newbie
Activity: 5
Merit: 0
Question: Should I spend extra money on a super efficient power supply in order to reduce the running costs of my mining operation?

Benchmark taken with same rig, at same temperatures after 30 minutes of solid mining @ 1.1MH
Wattage measurements are of the whole system at the wall - i.e. what it IS costing me to run.

Here is a relatively cheap 80 Plus Bronze power supply running my benchmark mining rig:
https://i.imgur.com/aUAZcUy.jpg

Here is an expensive 80 Plus Platinum power supply running my benchmark mining rig:
https://i.imgur.com/V4vnhBF.jpg

Here are the workings:
https://i.imgur.com/BAWlyAC.jpg

So as you can see - in terms of electricity cost saved by having the platinum PSU, IT SAVES ME 10 Pence PER DAY it will take 861 days of solid mining before I reach breakeven on the extra cost of the platinum PSU compared to the bronze PSU. 

So the answer to the question is: No.  Or to put it mildly - it is 110% NOT WORTH IT.  And this is in the UK where elec prices are high, for you guys in Iceland it could take up to 5 years to breakeven based on my figures.  Ouch!!!

Hope this helps guys and gals.

Keep mining! And keep eating potnoodles!!

potnoodleminer
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