80 plus certification what is it? how does it work?

In 2004, Ecova Plug Load Solutions started the 80 PLUS ® program, which consisted of testing the power supplies of a PC to verify their efficiency at 20%, 50% and 100% of the loads.

Initially, power supplies only needed 80% efficiency to become certified. Over the years, as power supplies became increasingly efficient, new standards were created.

Likewise, it was in 2007 when Energy Star made 80 PLUS Certification mandatory in order to carry the Energy Star logo.

Manufacturers, of course, have since been eager to adopt the 80 PLUS award, and since the initiative's inclusion in the Energy Star specification for computers in 2007, more than 2, 000 power supplies have earned 80 PLUS Certification, which makes it a clear industry standard.

Index of contents

What is 80 Plus Certification?

80 PLUS is a voluntary certification program that tests the efficiency of the power supply for a computer.

With the intention of promoting respect for the environment and energy efficiency, 80 PLUS Certification is awarded to power supply models that meet a minimum of energy efficiency.

The 80 Plus Certification has been created so that consumers know which power sources are the most efficient and, as the name implies, guarantees that the power source can be 80% efficient.

The 80 PLUS initiative is one of many standards introduced in an effort to increase energy efficiency in modern technology.

Currently, there are 6 types of 80 Plus Certifications: Standard, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Titanium.

What is energy efficiency and how important is it?

In the context of power supplies, energy efficiency is the amount of energy supplied by the power supply divided by the amount of energy it draws from the outlet and expressed as a percentage.

Efficiency is traditionally an overlooked specification in power supplies. It indicates how much energy you are wasting while using the PC.

A PC power supply takes alternating current (AC) from the wall and converts it to direct current (DC).

During this conversion, some of the energy is lost and depleted as heat. If a power supply is more efficient, it requires less AC power to produce the same amount of DC than a less efficient unit. In this way, less heat is produced.

In summary, energy efficiency is the amount of energy supplied compared to the amount of energy it consumes. For example, if a power supply consumes 100 watts and provides 80 watts of power, it has an energy efficiency of 80%.

However, power supplies do not maintain static energy efficiency levels. Currently, energy efficiency varies depending on the amount of charge being charged to the power supply.

Continuing with our imaginary 100 watt power supply, it can be 80% efficient under 100% load but drops to 50% efficiency when at 50% load.

Another thing you need to know about efficiency is that PSUs express higher efficiency when connected to a 230V (220 volt) power grid, and the efficiency numbers announced by manufacturers are measured at this voltage.

Therefore, if you live in a country or region where the power grid is 115 V (110 volts), such as the United States, there is ample chance that your PSU will express an efficiency less than the amount declared by the manufacturer.

In basic terms, the effect of increased efficiency is a lower electricity bill, the production of less heat and, consequently, greater component reliability.

How to get 80 Plus Certification

In order for a manufacturer to obtain an 80 PLUS rating for a PC power supply model, it must submit samples to an independent laboratory to test energy efficiency. In these laboratories, a power supply is tested to verify its efficiency at 10%, 20%, 50% and 100% load.

80 Plus certification in companies

If a company operates a large number of computers or servers, using 80 PLUS Certified power supplies can save money in the long run.

Bronze certification seems to strike a good balance between low initial purchase cost and high performance in a company.

80 Plus Certification Methodology

The 80 Plus Certification is carried out by an independent laboratory. Manufacturers who want to certify their products will have to send their samples and pay for them to test the units.

This fee also allows them to use the '80 Plus' logo if the units pass the certification process.

There they only test a sample of each product. Manufacturers are advised to send at least two samples to their laboratory, although additional samples are used only if the first sample fails.

It is important that you take a closer look at how they test power supplies. It is very similar to the tests that are done while checking the power supplies, that is, plugging the power supply into a given load, measuring how much power the power supply is drawing from the wall, and voila. We have the efficiency number, but with some important differences.

Available Certifications

The difference between the six available 80 Plus Certifications is summarized in the following tables. The numbers expressed represent the minimum efficiency that a power supply must offer for each load in order to obtain a given certification.

The requirements for each level of certification depend on the market to which the energy supply is destined. Non-redundant power supplies (that is, the type used worldwide) are tested at 115V and use the following table. The Titanium certification is the only one that has a minimum requirement of 10% charge.

The requirements for redundant power supplies (used in high performance servers or worlstation equipment), however, are slightly different, as can be seen in the image. Also, they are tested at 230 V, because this is the voltage used in datacenters (data centers use a 230 V electrical network basically because the power consumption is less than 230 V and since they have hundreds of servers running, they can save money on your electric bill).

In the following example, we are going to see a 500W power supply that puts 250W (50%) of its power:

As we can see, even with a power of 250W, we are saving 40.5W of alternating current, going from a standard 80 PLUS power supply to a Platinum 80 PLUS unit !

A power supply only consumes the amount of power that is asked of it. Different tasks require a different amount of energy.

If we are just browsing the internet, even a PC with a high-end graphics card installed can only consume 200W. If you have a 3 way SLI, you could be using 800 to 1200W of power when playing a current game.

If you don't turn off your PC at night, like many users, you will use more energy. Even if the computer is in sleep mode while sleeping, this is another 40W daily!

The most basic and original certification is awarded to any power supply capable of achieving at least 80% efficiency in the three defined workloads.

Meanwhile, 80 PLUS Gold Certification can only be awarded to power supplies capable of achieving 88% efficiency with a 20% load, 92% efficiency with a 50% load, and 88% efficiency with 100% charge.

Is a high-efficiency PSU worth it?

A 50% efficient PSU power supply that is responsible for supplying 50W of power to a system will draw 100W from the grid. The extra 50W is lost as heat. 90% efficient PSU would draw 56W under the same circumstances.

This means that the amount of money you save by upgrading to a high-efficiency power supply is minimal if you don't consume a lot of power to begin with.

However, if your system only uses 80W at idle, and 20 hours a day, you won't see much benefit from an 80 Plus Platinum power supply compared to a Standard 80 Plus power supply.

A worthwhile investment

The good news is that the top 80 Plus rated power supplies really deliver what they claim: there is a net reduction in total power consumption.

If you spend a lot of energy, 80 Plus Platinum Certifications could be good investments and pay back in a year or two. In the same way, if you are trying to minimize to the last watt of consumption, this is one way to do it.

Most of us, however, would be better served by turning off the machine or letting it go into hibernation. The best way to save energy is simply not to use it, and manufacturers currently charge huge marginal performance gains.

Disadvantages of the 80 PLUS program

• A small number of measurements to classify a PSU into one of its categories. The methodology allows manufacturers to submit gold samples. Very low ambient temperature at which measurements are made. Does not measure standby power consumption, which is essential for the European market, where all PSUs must comply with the ErP Lot 6 and ErP Lot 3 directives. Does not take into account the efficiency of 5VSB mode. There is no clear mention of the test equipment. 80 PLUS does not effectively deal with bogus efficiency badges.

Low number of efficiency measurements

In all certifications, except 80 PLUS Titanium, it only takes into account the efficiency under three load levels (20%, 50% and 100% of the maximum capacity of the PSU).

On the Titanium slip, 80 PLUS also adds a 10% load test to your requirements. As expected, this low number of tests does not clearly represent the overall efficiency of a test subject.

And to make matters worse, a misbehaving OEM can trick this methodology by sending out hand-picked Gold samples that are tuned to perform best under those specific load levels. This is much more difficult to achieve with a greater number of efficiency measurements under varying load levels.

Low ambient temperature tests

80 PLUS assigns all tests to external laboratories and, according to its official methodological sheet, all evaluations are carried out at 23 ° C, varying from 5ºC up or down. This means that a PSU can be legitimately tested at 18 ° C, which is very unrealistic for the interior of a PC. As a general rule, the higher the operating temperature of a power supply, the lower its performance.

Therefore, evaluating a PSU at such low temperatures is pointless. It does not sufficiently accentuate the components inside, so lower quality parts will not show signs of weakness.

Standby power consumption

Even when the PC is turned off, it still consumes power. To completely turn it off, either disconnect the power cord or turn off the power supply using the power switch.

The power a PSU needs in standby or sleep mode is called phantom power, since it is consumed without the power supply doing anything. This energy is mostly lost in the 5VSB circuit of the power supply.

In 2010, the European Union published a guideline on energy-related products (ErP Lot 6), which states that each electronic device must have a power consumption of less than 1 W in standby mode. In 2013, this limit was further lowered to 0.5W. The same year, the EU also published the ErP Lot 3 directive for computers and servers, which forces all PSUs to consume less than 5W when the load is equal or less than 2.75 W at 5VSB with universal power input (100V ~ 240V).

5VSB circuit efficiency

The ATX specification also states that the 5VSB voltage efficiency must be measured as well. However, 80 PLUS completely ignores it, although we consider this tension to be important.

An efficiency certification should take into account all voltages, not just + 12V, 5V, and 3.3V. As a side note, the -12V voltage is not required by the latest ATX specification as there is no PC component that uses it.

Fake certification plates

Unfortunately, it seems like the 80 PLUS program doesn't have the time, authority, or motivation to deal with fake certification badges. That is to say, there are PSUs with certifications that did not earn them, we do not want to point out but in forums you can clearly read who these “winners” are.

If each of the program's badges had a unique identifier (such as a QR code or short hyperlink) that links it to a specific PSU model, it would be much more difficult for manufacturers to use false certifications. However, 80 PLUS only provides a generic badge.

Instead, interested parties have to search the 80 PLUS database to find out if a PSU is truly certified.

What else do I need to know?

Although 80 PLUS Certification is widely regarded as the industry standard, consumers should beware of false advertising. In recent years, several power supplies have been introduced to the market with false claims of 80 PLUS.

It is also worth noting that the 80 PLUS program does not take reserve efficiency into account. Although all 80 PLUS certified power supplies will be efficient under load, the small amounts of power consumed while in standby may vary between units and there is currently no clear indication of which are the most efficient standby power supplies.

Summary of 80 PLUS certification at PSU

There is good reason to make sure your next power supply is 80 PLUS certified. By ensuring a high level of efficiency, the consumer is rewarded with lower operating costs by reducing electrical waste and lower operating temperatures by producing less heat.

With the continued rise in the cost of electricity, we can't think of a single reason not to buy an 80 PLUS Certified power supply.

The methodology on which this program is based is far from perfect, in part because it was conceived more than a decade ago.

To keep up with the increasing demands of modern technology, whether you're evaluating data processing units, CPUs, or GPUs, you have to adapt.

The biggest problem we have with the 80 PLUS organization methodology is the low level of load it takes into account. You simply cannot provide a reliable efficiency certification based on three or four different measurements. So what PSU did I buy? Don't worry, we have one of the best guides for Spanish-speaking power supplies with the most recommended models. If you have questions, can we help you?

In short, surely an 80 PLUS Certification is a great step for us who want to know more about efficiency before buying a power supply. But as we point out, the most popular certification program is far from perfect. What do you think of our article?

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