Google to push for more electrical efficiency in PCs

gforcefan · Post by **gforcefan** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:02 pm

Hey All,
I'm a long time reader, but never registered before. I saw this article and was suprized no one mentioned it here.

http://news.com.com/Google+to+push+for+ ... g=nefd.top

I thought the readers here would especially like this part:

Both the Google engineers and Calwell agreed that there was a significant design flaw, which they described as "overprovisioning," in today's PC power supplies. "It's like putting a 400-horsepower engine in every car, just because some cars have to tow large trailers every once in a while," Calwell said.

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:09 pm

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... ght=google

Though we haven't seen the bit about PSU sizing before, good to hear.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:30 pm

Google says that each PSU actually has four different PSUs in it. To be quite honest, they are wrong, you only need three, one to convert 120 Volt AC power into 12 Volt DC power and two to convert some of the 12 Volt DC power to 3.3 Volt DC power and 5 Volt DC power, which both have very small loads in the majority of computers. An excellent example of this would be the picoPSU review:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article601-page1.html

The only thing is that to my knowledge, no computer PSU manufacturer has created the functional equivalent of the picoPSU in a conventional PC form factor. I am glad to see that at least one company is pushing to get this changed.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:33 pm

I know there have been at least a few discussions on SPCR about using single-rail power supplies in desktop systems. Looks like this is about to turn into another one.

I think there are many advantages to a single-rail power system. I do question the efficiency gains, however. I'd imagine (at least initially) many of the voltage outputs would not be eliminated, but simply moved from the power supply to the motherboard. For example, don't many simple ICs (voltage regulators, etc.) still operate on +5V bias (isn't this kind of a "legacy" voltage)? So then you have to consider, what would be more efficient, a high quality power supply that has multiple outputs, or a high quality power supply with one output and a low quality motherboard with multiple outputs.

But then again, if a +12V power system became standard, I'd assume motherboard, HDD, etc. manufacturers would start using components designed to operate at +12V (I'd assume such devices exist), so it's kind of a moot point. Just something to consider, though.

Some definite advantages. Simplicity, and therefore lower cost and size. Potentially higher efficiency and therefore less power consumption, heat, noise, etc.

EDIT: Cool, 1k posts.

NyteOwl · Post by **NyteOwl** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 6:23 pm

Call me the odd man out, but Google needs to go back to doing what it does well - operating a search engine. It's getting altogether too intrusive for my tastes.

And yes I'm in a lousy mood at the moment.

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 9:21 am

Before more people want to reply to this thread, they should read the one linked to in the second post here. If Oleg Artamonov (who does PSU reviews at Xbit Labs) says the Google paper is "wrong" (and comes with decent arguments and links) I tend to believe him.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 3:27 pm

NyteOwl wrote:Call me the odd man out, but Google needs to go back to doing what it does well - operating a search engine. It's getting altogether too intrusive for my tastes.

And yes I'm in a lousy mood at the moment.

They developed this single rail power supply system to power the servers that run their search engine. Now they want to share this approach with the rest of the PC industry for PR purposes.