My the overload protection in my power supply started randomly shutting down my computer, so I figured I’d replace it with an 80 Plus rated power supply. It happened that Antec was offering $30 rebates on their supplies so I picked up a EA-430.
There wasn’t anything remarkable looking about the supply and it adequately powered my box, but I didn’t notice the real difference until I plugged my computer into my Kill A Watt Model P4400. Here’s the comparison to my old supply:
Powered down:
Old: 0.09A 5W 11VA 0.5 PF
New: 0.03A 1W 3VA 0.48 PF
Computer @ Idle
Old: 1.35A 104W 160VA 0.64 PF
New: 0.77A 90W 92VA 0.98 PF
Notice it draws 13% less power with a Power Factor damn close to 1.0 whereas the old supply was 0.64. I didn’t measure actual load, so there’s no way to tell if if the supply is 80% efficient, but it certainly is more efficient than my old supply.
Posted by benjamenjohnson as computer, electronics at 2:03 PM UTC