The Gigabyte UD1000GM PG5 1000W PSU Review: Prelude to ATX 3.0
by E. Fylladitakis on June 23, 2022 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- PSUs
- Gigabyte
- 1000W
- 80Plus Gold
- ATX v3.0
- 12VHPWR
Hot Test Results (~45°C Ambient)
Despite its lengthy warranty, the components of the UD1000GM PG5 left us unimpressed and our testing verified our initial assumptions. The PSU suffers when it has to operate inside a very hot environment, with the efficiency taking a brutal drop at high loads. The average efficiency reduction of 1% across the nominal load range does not seem that high but the efficiency drop is very high when the load is greater than 800 Watts, suggesting severe thermal stress.
Despite the very high ambient temperature, the fan of the GIGABYTE UD1000GM PG5 failed to start right away with the unit operating inside our hotbox. This resulted to worryingly high temperature readings at low loads. Once the fan started, the temperature dropped significantly, rising little by little as the load increased. The temperature does reach high figures again once the unit is heavily loaded but always stays within operating levels.
Even though it does not start right away, as expected, the 120 mm fan is giving its all to keep the GIGABYTE UD1000GM PG5 cool enough under these adverse operating conditions. The very moment is starts, the fan will be audible to the user, rapidly increasing in speed as the load increases. It reaches its maximum speed when the load is just a little higher than 50% of the unit’s capacity, valiantly trying to keep the PSU reliable and operational. The noise figures are above 50 dB(A), a figure that will annoy even the most tolerant of people if they are not wearing headphones – or ear protection.
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Threska - Thursday, June 23, 2022 - link
Wonder if "heavily loaded" will be the new norm with the upcoming video cards?PeachNCream - Thursday, June 23, 2022 - link
If people keep buying them regardless of the absurd power consumption, then yes. There will probably be a segment of the population that mindlessly chases more computer performance regardless of the lack of practical usefulness or implications it has for our shared planet. Those selfish sorts want their entertainment no matter the cost in resources or the impact it has in the long term.mode_13h - Thursday, June 23, 2022 - link
Yeah, I'm really hoping graphics cards with insane power dissipation numbers start to experience weaker uptake. As long as people keep buying them, manufacturers will keep building them.hansmuff - Monday, June 27, 2022 - link
People buy 3090 cards for their gaming performance. But those people are few, we just hear about them more because we travel in enthusiast circles.It's a given people will put up with 600W cards, however I imagine just the heat output alone, not even talking noise, will be unbearable in a regular size room. I mean, I throttle my 3080 to 250W, losing just a little performance but that's as much as I can take heat and noise wise; noise of course being particular to my model.
Anyhow. What I thusly wish is that these cards come with a switch that puts it in, for instance, a 300W max draw mode. Something people can use to boot the card with a 550/600W power supply, and then downvolt/downclock once in the OS.
That would make sense to me and would make me consider such a card. Those who want the thing to scream can have that, and I can have mine.
And I know a good number of cards have speed selectors/BIOS configuration selectors on them, but oftentimes they're not offering something that cuts down performance 20-30%, which is probably around what is needed for what I wish to exist.
nucc1 - Tuesday, July 26, 2022 - link
Why not buy a 3060 then?rtho782 - Monday, June 27, 2022 - link
Our long term plan for the planet shouldn't really involve worrying about 600W GPUs. They are a tiny segment anyway, but we should be looking for renewables, energy storage, and hell maybe fusion, to make electrical energy use irrelevant in the next couple of decades.If GPUs ran on coal I'd be worried but we just need to stop using fossil fuels.
rtho782 - Monday, June 27, 2022 - link
And in any case, for every one person buying a 600W GPU, there are probably 10+ "petrolhead" car owners doing far more damage to the environment.melisjan - Tuesday, June 28, 2022 - link
Hi I don't want to be anyhow offensive towars you, but renewable sources as substitute of traditional coal/gas/nuclear powerplants are just a dream of people who don't undrstand physics. We in Europe can see it for example in Germany. You need to understand that not every country have sunshine like on Sahara, not everywhere is wind like on Baltic coast and definitely not everywhere is river where you can build huge dam.Zoolook - Tuesday, June 28, 2022 - link
Luckily we have nuclear then, unless incompetent politicians ban them without reason.mode_13h - Monday, July 4, 2022 - link
> incompetent politicians ban them without reason.You're being sarcastic, right? Don't you know Germany has been decommissioning all of its nuclear plants for more than a decade? Germans got scared by seeing the Fukushima disaster and Green politicians capitalized on that fear.