For a long time, we've treated 80 plus as the gold standard when it comes to judging the quality
of a power supply. But 80 plus has borne criticism over the years for being a very
incomplete way to think about power supplies. And now it looks like a new challenger could be
gaining traction in the PSU certification market. But let's start by explaining exactly what 80 plus
is for those of you who are new to the space or maybe just forgot. 80 plus is a certification
that power supplies can get for hitting certain power efficiency targets. To qualify, a power supply
has to convert at least 80% of the incoming power to actual power that your computer can use at loads
of 20, 50 and 100%. In other words, the power supply has to be 80% efficient. For example,
let's say you have a 750 watt power supply at 50% load, meaning the components are drawing
375 watts. The power supply itself can't draw more than 469 watts, since 375 is 80% of 469.
Nice. The extra wattage that is not getting to the components is lost to waste heat or goes back
to the grid. To get a higher 80 plus rating like bronze, gold or platinum, the efficiency at each
load point has to be greater, which not only means bigger savings on your power bill, but usually
implies that the power supply itself is made with better quality components that will last you
a longer time. This sounds straightforward, but there are some real holes in the 80 plus system
that can not only mislead buyers, but that some manufacturers have used to game the system.
One big issue with 80 plus is the paradigm of only testing power supplies at three specific
load levels. While the idea behind it makes sense, take samples from light, moderate and heavy
workloads, the amount of stress you put on your power supply is highly variable, meaning 80 plus
might not be a good indicator of how your PSU will behave under the conditions that you specifically
use it for. But even worse is that because power supply manufacturers know that they're only going
to be graded on these three points, with the exception being titanium certified units,
they can specifically tune their power supplies to be impressively efficient at those three points
only, with more lackluster performance in most other situations. This is a particular issue
when the computer is at or near idle, where it probably remains much of the time, and where
many power supplies see their efficiencies drop well below 80%. And there are also concerns around
the testing process itself, as it's been reported that manufacturers have sent cherry picked or even
specially built units off for verification that are not representative of what most customers
would be buying. That's why there have been plenty of instances of 80 plus models that didn't hit the
proper efficiency targets when they were independently tested by third parties. The
manufacturers are basically cheating, not to mention that there have been 80 plus certified units
made with shoddy components resulting in high failure rates, as well as some models that got
certified once, then they switched to cheaper components, but unscrupulously kept the 80 plus
sticker on the box. And another thing, 80 plus certification tells you nothing about whether
important safety features are present, or whether the power delivered is clean enough for more
aggressive overclocking. So if 80 plus has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese, why do we even
pay attention to it in the first place? Well, we're not saying that 80 plus is useless or a scam.
It's fine as a starting point when you're looking to buy a PSU, but in addition to the 80 plus rating,
you should find reviews from folks who know what they're talking about, preferably involving a tear
down, and look at the components inside the PSU to make sure that your power supply won't fail or
explode on you when you're putting it through its paces. And we're hoping that the situation gets
at least a little bit better in the near future with the new cybernetics rating system gaining
popularity. In fact, they've already rated over a thousand different models. Although the cybernetics
procedure doesn't address every weakness of 80 plus, it tests a huge number of wattage loads,
meaning you get a better idea as to the power supply's overall efficiency while still using
the same familiar certification levels as 80 plus. Additionally, cybernetics ratings take into
account vampire power, which is how much power the PSU wastes while your system is actually turned
off. And they even give out a separate rating for noise so you can quickly confirm that your power
supply won't sound like a turbo problem. But remember that the cybernetics system still doesn't
say much about the overall reliability of the components. So yeah, rather than buying a just
released power supply, it's probably best to let someone with more money than you be the guinea pig.
Get something you can trust.