Hi everyone,
for 20 years now i run servers in my own home to host my stuff. Because i am living in europe with quite high price tags for electricity i am always searching for ways to make my servers more power efficient.

But finding a power efficient ATX PSU with performes well in ranges around 20-25W, where my server idles most of the time, is quite challenging.

Dont get me wrong, the Server has an very efficient PSU, a Super-Flower SF450P14XE Golden Green Pro but thats now 14 years old (but serves me well). I bought it for 55€ back in the days.
Over the years i tried various budget insider tips regarding efficent PSU’s (for example the Cooler Master MWE400) which all were also good but not better than the 14 year old Super Flower, which i think is kind of sad.

Just yesterday i tried a 160W PicoPSU combined with a 150W DELL DA-1 powerbrick (which should also be quite efficient), but it was the same. My Server used 1-3W more than with the Super-Flower.

Long story short: are there any efficient PSU out there that you can recommend for loads around 20-25W, that dont have a price tag like a kidney on the blackmarket?

I also have seen people trying to mod old Dell Server PSU with are 750W with platinum rating an are cheap on ebay, but thats another story.

  • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    I have an older (2017) Dell SFF OptiPlex 7050 that idles about 12w, with 3 drives (each 1 TB, spinning disk).

    It peaks about 80w when I’m doing conversions, but I can keep that down by limiting cpu usage for handbrake (it doesn’t convert faster above 4 cores anyway, just uses more power).

    I was surprised by the low idle power, I would’ve been happy with upwards of 40w since my previous machine idled at 100w.

    So I think very low idle is possible, I’m just not sure why this box idles so low.

      • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafeEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        Device Manager shows i7-7700, 3.6ghz, 8 cores

        Maxes at 3gb of ram, unfortunately, since I run some vm’s on it.

    • Lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      13 hours ago

      I have one of those running as a node in my proxmox cluster. Great little machines. You can hotrod them with Precision and XE3 parts, too, including the XE3’s 300W PSU vs the factory 180W unit. Drops right in.

      It, along with the rest of the cluster, plus my NAS, draws about 100W average.

      • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafeEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        Good to know! Wow, I’m impressed by the low power draw.

        Thanks, I wanted to add a video card for conversion jobs, but didn’t think it had enough power.

        • Lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1·
          1 hour ago

          The 300W XE3 PSU should offer plenty of overhead for a quality low-profile GPU and an i7-7700k (though you can’t overclock it). Mine also runs a Precision 3420 CPU cooler and has an additional intake fan up front.