What happened to all the low wattage titanium psus?
Posted by coldcathodes@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 40 comments
There used to be a decent amount of low wattage titanium psus, like the seasonic titanium plus. They had wattage like 650w 750w 850w.
Now it seems like they're all discontinued. What happened?
dabocx@reddit
Gpu power usage jumped so the average user wants more power.
From a manufacturer perspective making a 650 watt platinum vs a 1000 watt one was probably not a huge cost increase in building it but they can sell it at a premium.
coldcathodes@reddit (OP)
Even the high wattage titanium psus are gone mostly though. There's at least a few 100w+ ones leftbut not many. They're mostly just platinum now.
corakko@reddit
I did a lot of reading when I built my first PC a couple years ago and I came to the conclusion that there isn't a pressing reason for the home consumer to care about gold vs plat vs titanium. Buying from a reputable brand and an established product line seemed more important.
I'm far from an expert but i'm interested in hearing your opinion on why titanium PSU's are preferable.
coldcathodes@reddit (OP)
Well ever since titanium psus came out, i immediately upgraded them. This was because of the noise output and waste heat into my room was much lower.
pythonic_dude@reddit
Noise has very loose correlation with efficiency cert. You want to look specifically at Cybenetics noise cert nowadays.
coldcathodes@reddit (OP)
Yes I'm aware. Back when i bought my titanium psu almost 10 years ago. Such a resource didn't exist. Now I'm considering upgrading and I'll definitely be looking at it.
pythonic_dude@reddit
Cybenetics for the database and hwbusters for Aris' detailed reviews. Tbh while there are no ultra-high-premium lower wattage PSUs nowadays, the market is much better overall, very rich selection of quality platinum and higher ones.
coldcathodes@reddit (OP)
Yeah i got that from everyone's comments. I have no issues spending a bunch of money on a psu. It will be with me for another 10 years in my main pc and even when it's retired, it will live it's life in a secondary pc.
I have my eyes on the FSP hydro Ti pro 1000w psu. Unlike most people, gpus are usually where i try to spend the least of my money whenever possible.
vGrillby@reddit
The rating is for power efficiency, and a better efficiency means less cost on your power bill.
if you live in an area where electricity is expensive then you will save money over the lifetime of the PSU.
vagabond139@reddit
Even if it is expensive you are looking at small amounts and on top of that you have to pay extra for the extra efficiency. Going from gold to titanium is quite expensive. I've done the math before and it can take upwards of DECADES to make up the difference.
If you really care about money you would be better off investing that extra money you spent on the titanium in the stock market or something.
Efficiency really doesn't matter that much for your average consumer. It is important in the enterprise market though where things will be running under load 24/7/365.
corakko@reddit
The numbers I looked at made it seem like pennies a day unless someone is running intensive software 24 hours a day or similar.
IM_OK_AMA@reddit
Because there's pretty virtually no real world difference between them in practical use. The extra 1-2% efficiency you get through 20-100% rated load only makes the added cost worth it if you're consuming >1000w.
The big thing for Titanium is that it's 90% efficient down to 10% rated load, but the kinds of computers that people who build Titanium rated PSUs for all are gonna idle at >100w anyway, hence... no <1000w PSUs.
For reference here are the levels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Plus#Efficiency_level_certifications
No-Excitement-395@reddit
Big Gpus happened.
TheBenderRRodriguez@reddit
Sadly this is the case. When I do builds these days i usually go with at least 850w. Nvidia is king and their power draw is stupid.
karmapopsicle@reddit
Maximum performance on a given architecture is capped by how much power you can deliver to it (and then dissipate as heat). Efficiency is how much performance you get for that power. Blackwell is currently the most efficient consumer architecture,
Saying Nvidia’s power draw is stupid is like saying a car manufacturer’s fuel economy is stupid because they make a gas guzzling truck despite also making fuel sipping hybrids as well.
pythonic_dude@reddit
Well, you can also do the apple way (desktop 5090 die size for laptop 5070 performance but hey you are only sipping 100W!)
coldcathodes@reddit (OP)
I guess it all depends on your gpu, but do you really need to have so much wattage overhead? 5080 should use 350w + 150w for the cpu, so why the need for so much overhead?
TheBenderRRodriguez@reddit
Overhead, efficiency, future upgrades, expandability, etc.
This is for new builds. 750w you can get away with now, but I'm assuming future cards are going to require even more power. The 5090 already will pull 500w+ so nvidia isn't going to be shy about it. Plus it's like $15-$20 usually for the bump to 850w and most these power supplies have 3-5 year warranties, should be planning for at least that far out.
coldcathodes@reddit (OP)
Yeah makes sense if you're on the highest end. The 90 class cards have increased in power like crazy. I think if you buy the 80 class cards though, the wattage hasn't really changed. 3080 to 5080, both are around 350w.
Head_Exchange_5329@reddit
Made more sense a few years ago when a PSU didn't have 200% spike overhead, meaning a 650W PSU can handle a 1300W spike without kneeling. This results in a fare lower need for high wattage PSU for well over 90% of PC builders out there. I "downgraded" from a 1000W ATX 2.4 to a 750W ATX 3.1 PSU and the only thing I wouldn't dream of running in my current system is a 5090. A 4090 I'd undervolt and know it would be fine.
coldcathodes@reddit (OP)
Is that spike overhead that important even? I remember it was a big deal when the 3000 series came out, then the issue all suddenly went away and no one was talking about it.
Did EVERYONE upgrade their psu or did Nvidia optimize the driver to have less spikes in power?
kcajjones86@reddit
The ideal PSU is so efficient that you buy a 2000+ watt version and it's 95±% efficient at 1w through to 2000w. This doesn't exist get but I wonder if high power titanium PSU's can do good numbers with low load.
Symphonic7@reddit
1000W platinum is like the bare minimum now. Titanium is even harder to find, I've only seen 1200W and up. Its just such a niche item, that the market isnt there. Anyone buying 650W power supplies probably have low power mid range parts, and cannot justify paying premium for a power supply.
coldcathodes@reddit (OP)
Do you even really need that much wattage though?
I'm powering a 3080 ti + 13900ks, 3 hdds, 2 sata ssds, 1 nvme, 1 sound card, and 1 optane 905p all on 750w. Only thing special is that it's a titanium psu.
postsshortcomments@reddit
As a ceiling? No absolutely not. There are some niche cases, but usually not at consumer level (perhaps a high TDP CPU, paired with the highest wattage GPU, with some excessive open-loop cooling could warrant it, and maybe throw in some novelty Molex Edison lightbulbs could warrant it).
https://www.coolermaster.com/en-global/guide-and-resources/what-is-80-plus-efficiency/
Remember that PSUs run most efficiently at about 50% load. In other words, a 1200W PSU most efficiently serves a system running at 600W load. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as "just buy 2x."
Most consumers PSUs aren't running at 100% load constantly (aside from perhaps mining rigs/AI/rendering stations). Usually it's a mix of work, browsing, other hobbies, and frame-capped/limited games (idle load is typically <60-80W, about the same as an incandescent lightbulb).
Remember that PSU rating is power efficiency and not necessarily quality (though it often correlates as long as the manufacturer is being honest about their certification). So if you're buying a Titanium efficiency PSU for the purpose of the certification, you're buying it for its power efficiency. If you're only running at max load (600W) at 50% efficiency for a few hours on the weekends, you're talking a 4% difference in efficiency from a gold.
Going to do a bit of sloppy math (technically this answer will be a bit lowballed because I'm lazy and my starting point for Titanium is 100% efficiency). In the US, a 600 watts running for an hour averages about $0.11 (at the high end it can be double that). 4% of that is a fraction of a penny per hour. There are 8760 hours in a year, so if we run that device all year at a 600W load that a total of about $963; but we're only looking at the cost due to a 4% lower efficiency.. 4% of that is $38. Given that many Titanium PSUs have 10 year warranties.. a 600W load running 4% more efficiently over 10 years could be about $380 in savings over that period (it should be a little more).
Great if you're constantly running at load or in a fleet in somewhere like a data center.. but most consumers probably wont be. Even when they're gaming, most will be running at only partial load - especially if they're framelimiting to their monitor specs.
The cheapest titanium 1000W I see on Newegg is about $200. I know I paid $80 for my 850W Gold. Technically, I can't directly compare because my max system load is nowhere near 600W.. but for oversimplified math.. to make up for the $120 additional cost and break even from a 4% efficiency difference @ a 600W load, if my math is correct you'd need need to run it at full load for 7.5 hours a day for 10 years. That's just to break even and not get into the "saving money". Again, my ceiling was $380 with average US energy prices. In markets that are more expensive (like California/Hawaii) that could double. In other countries, it could be even more significant. But unfortunately, we do kind of arrive at the point where if it's a lot of money to the consumer.. they probably don't have a 600W load build and thus that break even gets even harder to justify.
Symphonic7@reddit
Realistically no. Sustained loads even for high ends parts are usually not even close to 1000W unless you're running a workstation with high core count CPU and lots of drives. The reason I initially upgraded from a 650W gold to a 1000W platinum was transient loads on my GPU, which could sometimes spike up to 400W+ and it caused instability in my system. That drove me crazy. Also the coil whine completely went away after my upgrade. So now I always default to 1000W platinum as my starting point. Currently using an ROG Loki 1000W. Current build is 7800x3D, 6950XT, 2 NVMEs, and 2 SATAs with a couple of fans.
coldcathodes@reddit (OP)
Yeah makes sense. I do remember back when the 3000 series came out, my exact psu model was named as having too sensitive of ocp triggering shut downs. I've never had an issue oddly but maybe I'm just lucky.
Symphonic7@reddit
I think the extra 100W on a 750W is probably holding you over well. I have a UPS and I've measured full system load at around 550W, so when I spike up it would trip my PSU. You're probably balanced perfectly.
coldcathodes@reddit (OP)
I think I'll start looking for a new psu since discussing this with everyone. I have so much more hardware compared to the average person. Additionally my psu is top mounted and it always runs crazy hot. Thanks for your comments.
Symphonic7@reddit
Check out SPL's PSU tier list, that's how I settled on what I have now since I wanted to do a very specific SFF build. But they have tons of great info. Always happy to talk hardware.
Aranxi_89@reddit
It's not worth it to make such low wattage ones with such high efficiency.
Narissis@reddit
They probably didn't sell well.
If you're buying a smaller PSU, you're likely buying it for a budget build that doesn't have a huge GPU. And if you're buying on a budget, you're not going to spring for the expensive Titanium rated model; you'll probably go for the Gold instead, which is still high quality and a fair bit cheaper.
osteologation@reddit
Maybe I’m old school but 650w is hardly low power. I feel my build is mid at best ryzen 5600g/rtx4070) and pcpart picker says 450 minimum. With the high efficiency these newer ones have though it’s not really detrimental to go way bigger than you need so I can see that angle.
Narissis@reddit
You're not wrong that 650 is hardly low power; the thing is that high-end GPUs have exploded their power consumption so much over the past few generations that they've pushed the window upward.
It used to be that the highest-end GPUs were maybe peaking at 300W; now they're running over 400W baseline and spiking well above that.
ChadtheWad@reddit
Might have to do with demand. Efficiency is a lot more important in places like data centers where nodes are going to regularly be running at higher load and something like a 5% difference in efficiency (that between platinum and gold, for example).
Not really sure if the benefit was too great for consumer PCs. Based on my estimates... if you're running a PC for about 16 hours a day at an average wattage of like 200W and paying $0.16/kWh, a consumer saves about $0.78 per month at most by using a titanium vs. gold PSU. Demand may simply just not be there.
MarxistMan13@reddit
Demand for low-wattage, high-end PSUs has to be pretty low. People with the budget for a high-end PSU also probably have the budget for high-end components, which means high-power components these days.
There are still some Titanium 750W/850W units available around $200... but that mostly doesn't make sense to buy unless your electricity costs are astronomical.
Bobert25467@reddit
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV6FSFL9
ForgottenCrafts@reddit
Its more profitable to make big wattage titanium units rather than lower ones. The people buying lower wattage are not known to splurge.
9okm@reddit
Demand went away.
Fun-Employer4602@reddit
Bring back r/all.