2 ms·

But this completely misses the point. You can put a 1000 watt PSU in a computer and it won't draw 1000 watts at full load. That's just the max the PSU can suppl

But this completely misses the point. You can put a 1000 watt PSU in a computer and it won't draw 1000 watts at full load. That's just the max the PSU can supply. SETI is mainly CPU intensive so even if they had the absolute smallest possible PSU, SETI isn't going to cause it to produce the full 350 watts. And that's a pretty awful efficiency you suggest. It may be that bad, but I'd sure hope not.

CydeWeys 11y ago
SETI also runs (or did, from what I remember) a 3D screensaver. It's not doing nothing on the videocard, anyway, but I don't know how close to fully maxing out anything it gets. Talking about power load, though, I have a Kill-A-Watt pass-through power meter, and I have measured power at the wall exceeding the rated output power capacity of an 80% efficient power supply on a computer running at full load (running a graphically and computationally expensive computer game). A lot of PSUs are pretty inefficient. You can look up the stats. It wasn't until recently that you even had a lot of them earning the 80 Plus "bronze" rating, which is 80% efficiency. There's still plenty with worse efficiency than that. A decade ago, you're probably looking at 60% efficiency on average.