There’s a new PSU efficiency rating above Titanium, but don’t expect to find it in a gaming PC
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Anyone who has put together a gaming PC or is thinking of doing so may have heard of two certifications when it comes to power supplies: 80 PLUS and Cybenetics. These aren’t going anywhere, but something is changing in the data center space.
The maximum efficiency rating for 80 Plus was Titanium, but now, with the ever-changing landscape of data warehousing for storage, processing, and AI workloads increasing every day, PSUs for data centers need to evolve to keep the power requirements in check, and hence, 80 Plus Ruby has been announced.
What is 80 Plus Ruby?
ClearResult introduced a new and the highest level of efficiency for a power supply called 80 Plus Ruby. A standard 80 Plus rating means that a power supply unit has to be 80% efficient, but anything higher than that puts it in a different category.
That being said, the 80 Plus Ruby certification isn't for PSUs that we use in gaming PCs, but it was introduced for data center PSUs, that has a very high capacity and need to be more efficient to keep the costs low.
According to ClearResult, 0.4% of all the energy used in the U.S. is from data centers, and they expect it to increase to 6.7% and 12% by 2028. So, the 80 Plus Ruby standard is given to PSUs that achieve a 96.5% efficiency at 230V, 277V, 480V (AC / DC), and 380V DC at 50% load and 90% or higher efficiency at 5%, 10%, 20%, 50%, and 100% load.
Image source: ClearResult
Another element introduced with this new certification is the 5% load measurement, which was previously limited to 10%. Data centers aren't operating at their peak performance all the time, and the efficiency is higher when the load is at 50% or 100%.
However, to ensure that the energy is properly and efficiently utilized, PSUs with an 80 Plus Ruby rating are made to deliver a minimum of 90% efficiency at 5% load, when the data centers are firing on all pistons.
Delta Electronics, a company that offers data center, building automation, and industrial automation solutions, has introduced a 5,500W server redundant power supply unit that has an 80 Plus Ruby rating. So, in a world where the energy crisis is ramping up each day, a step towards preserving power and utilizing it more efficiently seems like the right direction to go in.
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