How to estimate APC UPS power ?
What size UPS would work for my personal computer?
How many watts is enough for a UPS
Calculate UPS size
Why do you need to calculate the wattage of a PSU (Power Supply Unit)? And how can you use the Newegg power supply calculator to determine the right wattage for you?
What is the Newegg PC power supply calculator?
How accurate is the Power Supply Calculator?
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I'm getting a new PC in a couple of weeks and the area I live in power goes out once and sometimes more every day so I figured I needed a UPS to to safely turn off my PC whenever that happens.
If the power supply is 600W how many VAs should I get that would be enough to supply the PC and monitor for like 5 minutes max just to save any work and shut the PC down.
- APC UPS Selector
- Newegg PSU Wattage Calculator
Obviously, these tools are made by people who stand to make extra profits by skewing the numbers, but I have found they are pretty decent to work with.
As a very rough rule of thumb, the wattage rating of a UPS is approximately 0.6 * its VA rating so, as you have seen, a 700VA UPS is good for a power load of around (0.6 * 700) = 420W (your specs said 405W). Conversely, the minimum VA rating you need is approximately 1.6 * load wattage.
Your 700W PSU gives you some idea of how much power your PC will need 'fully loaded', but under normal running conditions it will perhaps use less than half this amount - it's hard to tell without knowing the full specs. And don't forget to add the wattage of your display if you want that to be powered by the UPS too.
Once you have worked out the maximum wattage of your load (the PC, possibly + display), you can choose the base VA rating of UPS you need - then you look at the specs and see which model suits your need. Here's where the fun starts, because you next have to look at how long you want the UPS to run when the power goes - and this can take two paths...
You can pick a UPS that is rated for pretty much the full VA you need so it will be running at 100% of capability and will thus last 'n' minutes.
You can pick a UPS that is rated at a much higher VA value than you really need so, for example, is running at 50% of capability and will thus last for longer than the UPS from option 1.
To complicate matters, you can sometimes buy extra battery packs for use with an 'option 1' UPS so its VA rating is not increased but it will run for longer....
...or you can overspec as per option 2 and know that you can add to the load on the UPS in the future, albeit at the expense of run time.
This is the point where you decide whether to read up on all this and become a UPS choosing guru, or use the manufacturer's UPS selection tools!
I am using a PC (basically a AMD 5800x + NV RTX 2060). Then I upgraded to a 3060TI and now my UPS beeps everytime I start a game. I may need a stronger one but how can I estimate what I need ?
I have a “Kill A Watt EZ” ( https://www.homedepot.com/p/P3-International-Kill-A-Watt-EZ-Meter-P4460/202196388 ) to which my UPS is connected for my equipment rack in my office. I have an HP ML350 G6 with fourHDD drives and two SSDs, my desktop computer, a Cisco SG300-10PP, a Cisco SG300-28, a WatchGuard firewall, and four 19" 5:4 LCD displays. With all that running, my wattage is 336W and 371VA.
My UPS is 1000VA, so your 850VA UPS should be fine for just a computer and two monitors, unless you truly are sucking lots of power.
Keep in mind that you could have a 2,000VA PSU and it likely wouldn’t draw much more power than your 750VA PSU, because that rating is the “maximum available” rating, not the actual usage under normal load. You’d have to measure that directly, and the cheap way has already been mentioned.
Gregg
So I have a custom built PC at home that has a 750watt psu in it, I also have two dell monitors (27" and 22") I would also like to have attached to a UPS instead of just a surge protector. Just in-case power did go out I could shut down my PC. The estimated wattage from PC partpicker is 431 watts (if that is accurate). So would an APC Back-UPS BE850M2, 850VA suffice? Or would I need something with a little more juice?