Why aren't PSU's getting any smaller?

Why aren't PSU's getting any smaller?

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Even for small PC's, the PSU is still monstrously large in comparison to everything inside the case. It does nothing but convert AC to DC. Why does it have to be so large?

Bumping because I want to know as well

Aren't quite a few companies starting to produce SFX and SFX-L PSUs? Silverstone even has the 800W SFX-L one.

Because capacitors.

Because ATX PSUs are the standard size and if it's not broken, don't fix it.
But I do wish more case manufacturers would make mid/mini tower cases that use SFX PSUs.

Have you never seen the insides of them? The capacitors and transformers are massive

Smaller PSU means less fault tolerance. Dont mess with power that comes with electricity

Mostly because of heat dissipation faggot. Also capacitors with high voltage capacity are huge.

Market for PSU want high power,a lot connections,in big case and one or two high end card graphics.

You could had small passive cooling low power PSU only works mobile chip, but market want PC gamers, and OEM make these kind of PC for office.

They are getting smaller in the server market where you aren't obligated to meet some arbitrary spec set 22 years ago.

>if it's not broken, don't fix it.
dont hinder progress with that shitty attitude. Lets not invent ddr4 ram because ddr3 is fine. m2 ssds? nah too fast when a hdd on an ide cable just works

If i'm a filhty rich fag with near unlimited amount of resources you will be the type of people i would hire.

Unfortunately I the only thing I own is my underpants.

Because it's impossible to deliver a lot of power in smaller formfactors plus the increase of power means increase of heat and at smaller formfactors it will be harder to dispatch it properly

I think the next standard should be external psus. That would be interesting as cases could be smaller, however i cant think of a single way it would be functional. Even if you did what a console does you would have to have a huge connector on the back for all the interal cords, unless we upped power over pci to a greater level. Then i could see it working as you could power everything through the mother board (double the sata ports and use half as esata maybe

your thinking of it the wrong way. If you can make components that are cheaper to manufacture and superiour to last generations product youll make profit. So its best to invest into rnd

Standards.

Small PSUs = small fans = LOUD

That is why no matter how cool I think a SFF build with a flex PSU would be I would never actually do it due to the loudness.

A) standardized form factors
B) there's a lot of hardware that goes into converting 120Hz AC to DC, each voltage (3.3, 5, 12, -12, 5VSB) gets its own rail, there is dedicated hardware for filtering and PFC among other things and PSUs, especially inefficient ones, generate heat so ventilation is always a good thing.

>If you can make components that are cheaper to manufacture and superiour to last generations

Ohh boy you're gonna make a whole world your enemy aren't ya. Well at least the businessman.

But they are...

probably, i care more about progress than money. Money always shows up anyway as long as you have a project worth using (ie linux)

>tfw no DC powerlines

They'll get smaller if we get complex PCB geometries but till then it needs to fit a fairly large board.

They have horrible reliability and the bronze-rated ones are all garbage tier

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty happy with not needing a power station on every city block.

You try making a tiny power supply that can convert 120V at whatever amperage and then turn it around and supply the many different voltages needed to run high-energy components that a PC typically has without it overheating or just simply failing.

>Why are PSUs not getting smaller?
But they are user. You are just looking at the wrong places
hd-plex.com/HDPLEX-Internal-300W-AC-DC-Adapter-with-Active-PFC-and-19VDC-Output.html

You should just not be an ITX autist.

Powerstations look cool.

Well to be honest you should be happy it's that big because it allows the intake to be used as an exhaust airflow in that setup

Sorry what?
One of these + an STX board and you can put a full desktop system, including a desktop GPU, in something the size of a fucking ATX power supply

> Have you never seen the inside of a computer? How is it ever possible to make that smaller?? It's IMPOSSIBLE.

- some guy from the 80s

holy shit its real
youtube.com/watch?v=Hos8KfYGQjg

But there is a performance benefit to DDR4 RAM, there's no performance benefit to a smaller ATX compatible PSU.

There are some external PSUs for thin clients, so it's not like there are no "advances". You're getting cleaner and cleaner PSUs for cheaper, stop with the false equivalence bullshit arguments.

Servers have good support contracts. I like knowing I can head to the computer store and just buy a PSU without worry because of that arbitrary spec.

Notice too, PSU's have way more power now from those early 250W units.
I personally hate the slim line cases Dell and others have because they suck to work on and power supplies are proprietary. Sucks when you're in a jam unless you have spares.

Server power supply can deliver over 1100W and is like 1.5" x 1.5" but really long.

But they are

yet the computer uses more power today than it did then
why isn't the psu BIGGER?

If you minimize your current requirement and know what the max will be then you could make your own small power supply.

If you want to answer your own question you can calculate a common current draw of your computer and wire up resistors that will draw that much current at that voltage. Now try to supply that current draw without the voltage sagging or the power supply getting hot. You'll soon see that the power supplies needed get bigger and bigger and run warmer and warmer as the voltage and draw is met. Then lower the voltage draw and see what happens. The voltage will rise so it requires regulation. That makes heat as well and requires heat sinks and means you have to supply more voltage and amperage than necessary for the device you're powering. etc. etc.

Efficiency can lead to smaller PSUs.

Take a 400w gaymen machine that also does 40w at idle

On a standard chinkshit 80plus if you're lucky you've got around 80w of waste heat and 8w all the time

On a platinum PSU you could have as little as 32w and 3.2 idle

That is cheating, however. That power supply is a DC-DC psu and most likely all stx mobos take DC only. All you are doing is moving the AC-DC parts to outside the case.

can't tell if bait.

as pc components become more energy efficient and require less watts, the power supply can shrink with it. that's why laptops can exist with their tiny off-board psu's.
the problem is that components are getting faster (and as such require more power) at the same time as becoming more energy efficient so the power requirements have remained the same.

if we stuck with computing power that was cutting edge back in the 70's, it would be so efficient by now we could run it off a fucken AA battery.

>DC to DC
Faggot.

There's a couple of reasons why PSUs don't decrease in size much.

1) You need to separate the high voltage AC side from the DC side, because if it can bridge in any way all your DC components get burned.

2) You need at least three different voltages being generated, 12v, 5v and 3v

3) You need some thermal management for the mosfets in particular that are doing the work

Laptops get around some of this by having power brick that converts into a single voltage (18-20v usually) and then inside the laptop are the components to do DC-DC conversions from 18v down to voltages the system uses, so it is spread out.
Your power brick heats up quite a bit while charging your laptop.
The mosfets in your laptop on the different power rails heat up quite a bit doing voltage conversions.

Big capacitors and transformers are nice to have because they are generally more efficient and longer lasting.

>I think the next standard should be external PSUs
There are already custom OEM PCs with these. Some laptops have enormous external PSUs also.

Not a lot of drive for innovation, most people and OEM's just want cheap, but that is not to say that they are not a lot more precise on the output then say 10 or 20 years ago.

Its super hard to kill a standard like ATX. I bet that I will still be able to buy a brand new 400W ATX PSU in 50 years.

It's used as exhaust by OEM PCs. It's also an industry standard.

But they are. Pic related is a 1200W server PSU. Look at the AC connector - That's a single rail 12v PSU that's connected to a power backplane/DC-DC converter that converts to the other voltages (5v, 3.3V). Problem is that they're noisy.

Because you're a moron who doesn't understand electricity.

...

>I think the next standard should be external psus.
I think you should stop your way of thinking. The case may be smaller but the footprint is larger because now I have to take up desk or floor space to accommodate two things instead of one.

>ITT: People who think they are smart but don't know what pico-PSUs are
KEK

because these decisions are still made by people who have degrees in engineering(making things work well) instead of in design(making things pretty.) You know, the way everything should be.

why can't we just have a fucking power plug from the wall straight to the computer and skip the power supply? My lamp doesn't have a power supply, my coffee maker doesn't have a power supply, my TV doesn't have a power supply, they just use power straight from the wall.

PSU is the most jewish thing I have ever heard of, limiting the number of Watts each PSU can """""""""""convert""""""" just to make people buy more expensive power supplies

What's the problem with that? The power adapter itself is still way smaller then a ATX PSU, it's not like ATX PSUs don't have power cables.

>What's the problem with that?
It's not really making it smaller. It's just making it more space efficient by separating the AC and DC parts of the psu. Plus, AC-DC adapters above 100 watts are somewhat large.
>it's not like ATX PSUs don't have power cables
What is this suppose to mean?

nigger what

I don't think that is going to power my gaming rig.

It's much more probable now

Just hide the PSU somewhere

>DC power lines
Would be a logistical nightmare.

youtube.com/watch?v=B6QUuniKJek

Unless hardware starts pulling less current, PSU's aren't getting any smaller. To save on space they'd need to be passively cooled and provide fewer voltage rails

using 1W parts to convert 120V, 15A AC because muh 650W PSU is too big.

A smaller PSU automatically means: Smaller cooling solutions; Smaller components; most probably a very low headroom for failure.

You do not want to to screw with wall electricity because you might fry your whole PC and right now, there's no need for smaller form factor PSU-s. The only true MEMErs of the PC generation are Apple with their trashcan type PC. Everybody else tried to follow but mostly failed and they look ugly. The normal case is still the king at the moment.

Cases keep getting bigger, cables and cable management is hardly an issue, nobody needs to put the effort into downsizing

No they wouldn't, high voltage DC is superior in transmission efficiency than high voltage AC. A lot of high powered lines are DC, between continents for example.

>high voltage DC is superior in transmission efficiency than high voltage AC.
Over shorter distances.

>A lot of high powered lines are DC, between continents for example.
What continents have power transmission lines connecting them?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HVDC_projects

Say that to Edison who promoted DC and lost out to AC even after all the scare tactics against it.

>DC in 12V

Because converting 120v AC down to what the digital components of a computer uses (3-12) while still providing enough power/current for a modern cpu/gpu/etc requires decently sized coils and correspondingly large cooling capacity. No way around the physics.

Hardware Is really fucking efficient nowadays.

Buy a pico psu and get a wall wart or laptop psu. My server is on a cooler master 90w dc psu.

...

snakeoil

Clean up that fucking mess.

I had to take the table away for now. I will build a new one in the future, but I'm moving in a couple of weeks.

I'm surprised I didn't see hawaii in there. Neat that san francisco is powered by one of those.

Why aren't ITX boards mainstream? Why are GPUs only growing in size?

because nobody gives a shit`

>Why aren't ITX boards mainstream?
Because a lot of people need/want more than two DIMM slots, more SATA connectors and more expansion slots.

>Why are GPUs only growing in size?
Because they already use discrete components but power consumption is increasing, so they need to add more discrete components.
Also, cooling.
Also, HBM.

big gpus pull like 4x the power of the entire rest of the computer

because BIGGER is BETTER and if you get PAID for HIGH EFFICIENCY nad no HOUSEFIRES you BETTER STEP IT UP. Also everything in POWER engineering is BIG so they probably want to let I.T. MANLETS have something BIG once in a WHILE aside from their "GF"'s COCK.

GTFO here Thomas Edison
This is a Tesla board, you're not welcome here

The line gauge needed for DC power distribution is insane. The weight of the line is so much higher than you would need 3 poles for every 1 pole that's currently up to combat sagging. Streets would look like wooden prisons.

>Alibaba power supply

Well, I guess I could use some Victoria Day fireworks.

>No way around the physics.
Can't rule out new discoveries, user.

You fucking idiot converting AC to DC isn't fucking easy. You can't shrink the big inductors and capacitors needed, it's physics.

it's fucking physics, you need at least a certain gauge of wire and at least a certain number of coils for the inductors and the capacitors need to have the plated distanced however far apart. It's fucking physics.

please don't make your own power supply unless you know fucking AC circuits. If you're plugging shit in the wall you need to know what the fuck you're doing, you can also really easily blow the fuck out of your motherboard just by cheaping out on components. You also need to power factor correct if you want any degree of efficiency, otherwise you'll be paying for a shitload of power you aren't actually using.

Because you cant fuck with physics.

>Titanium better than Platinum

Electronic Engineers are hacks

It's a complex situation without an easy answer.

So you know how the CPUs are using smaller processes right? 32nm, 14nm, 7nm, so on? Well the thermal wattage is still roughly in the range of 65-135W. You're running the same energy through smaller pipes, so the power supplies have to be engineered to reduce the space between the electrons going through. If they didn't do this most processors would fail in a few days tops.

Within the last say decade they've built out the power supplies to handle this automatically to a point (see the bronze, silver, gold, titanium ratings for more on that) so the equipment and circuitry to do that for several generations out takes up space. The compact PSUs just remove some of the older full-ATX circuitry to get around this.

But your laptop does having a power supply?

Power supplies HAVE gotten smaller, but things like transformers and capacitors can only be made so small because they're manipulating electricity, so the size of those features have a strict lower limit that is determined by the materials used in manufacturing. You can't just increase the gauge of wire used in windings because that would lower the amount of current you could safely run through the wire (remember higher gauge means thinner wire). You also can't just make a capacitor smaller without having better insulation in the capacitor to prevent it from exploding. The reason processors and other microchips can be made so tiny is because they're essentially just signaling devices; they don't manipulate the electricity beyond just sending it along different paths.

So what says is quite incorrect; it's really a materials science problem, not really anything electrical engineers can do anything about. Give an electrical engineer some magical insulator that's nano meters thin and can effectively insulate thousands of volts along with superconducting wire that's cheap to manufacture and he will build you the tiniest power supply you've ever seen.

There are PCs with external power bricks which are smaller though.