[Rittzy]

Need a power supply for a MSI E350IA, the AMD APU that only draws about 20watss on idle. It seems the lower wattage you get the same or higher the price is.

Is it bad to run, say a 500w psu, for this and a few hard drives. I dont want to but if anyone has any suggestions, it would be great.

 

[ocpokey]

Is it bad? Depends on what you are defining bad as. It's crazily wasteful, in that your efficiency is like 40%, but it won't harm your components or anything.

Newegg is selling an Earthwatts 380W for $25 AR, that's pretty darned cheap for a decent PSU, though it will only fare a bit better in terms of efficiency than a 500W.

 

[esocid]

I think peak efficiency is somewhere b/w 60-80% of the max output, someone correct me if that's wrong. I don't think you'd even see 200W max draw from that and 10 hard drives. I would suggest looking for something less than or equal to 300 so you can maximize efficiency.

 

[Rittzy]

Yea the whole point of this thing is to be energy effcient as possible, also needs to be pretty decently quiet and be or ATX size but i dont think all those come as one unfortunatly.

Was looking at this anyway, kind of fills the ticks plus still 84% effcient at 20% load
Be Quiet

 

[esocid]

If Phaedrus spots this thread he would be helpful, but I haven't heard of them, or Listan, so I have no idea of the innards. May be Topower or FSP.