80 Plus Ruby Sets 96.5% Peak Efficiency Benchmark for Server Power Supplies

[AleksandarK]

Data centers have quietly become the engines of the modern world, processing everything from social media updates to critical financial transactions. Yet, as their workloads grow, so does their appetite for power. The data center power supplies are powering these massive compute clusters, which are wasting a great deal of power converting AC to DC. A few months back, CLEAResult silently introduced 80 Plus Ruby, a new certification that raises the bar for server power supply efficiency and offers a path to greener data center operations. Data centers account for about 0.4% of US electricity use, but that figure could climb to 12% by 2028 as AI and cloud services expand. Under the Ruby standard, power supplies must achieve at least 96.5% efficiency at 50% load and maintain at least 90% efficiency at 5% and 100% loads. These thresholds apply across common voltages, including 230 VAC, 277 VAC, 480 VAC, and 380 VDC.

Unlike earlier certifications, Ruby also specifies minimum power-factor values: at 5% load, a PSU must deliver 90% efficiency with a power factor of at least 0.90, and at 20% and 50% loads, it must hit 95% and 96.5% efficiency, respectively, each with a power factor no lower than 0.96. Delta Electronics has already put three of its high-wattage power supplies through the Ruby certification process. Its 5,500 W redundant models, built for AI servers, achieved up to 97.5 percent efficiency and a power factor above 0.96. With global regulations from ENERGY STAR to the EU's ErP directive tightening efficiency rules, 80 Plus Ruby is getting real and immediate backing from power regulators and power supply makers.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Given how ballz expensive Titanium supplies are already, I cant imagine how much a Ruby must cost.

 

[ymdhis]

I'll wait for 80 Plus Sapphire or 80 Plus Emerald.

 

[ty_ger]

Why do they keep the "80 Plus" part? Instead of different suffixes like Ruby, why not 85 Plus or 90 Plus?

 

[phints]

Price is gonna be crazy for 1% more efficiency over Ti. Can't imagine it being worth it, diminishing return here.

 

[Raiju]

Enter GaN territory

 

[EsaT]

Given how ballz expensive Titanium supplies are already, I cant imagine how much a Ruby must cost.

While there are certainly component costs, I suspect far the biggest cause for prices of 80+ Titanium PSUs is low manufacturing volume.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Why do they keep the "80 Plus" part? Instead of different suffixes like Ruby, why not 85 Plus or 90 Plus?

yep, asked this a while ago as well...

 

[Frick]

Why do they keep the "80 Plus" part? Instead of different suffixes like Ruby, why not 85 Plus or 90 Plus?

Branding. It's extremely well known at this point and honestly if I saw a product with a "90 Plus" label on it I would assume it's a real silly knockoff.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Branding. It's extremely well known at this point and honestly if I saw a product with a "90 Plus" label on it I would assume it's a real silly knockoff.

Same reason we call them "half ton" and "three quarter ton" trucks when a half pound payload was surpassed 70 years ago and you can configure a half ton with a payload over a ton.

 

[SL2]

Why do they keep the "80 Plus" part?

Imagine the backlash if they called it 90Plus Ruby, given the minimal improvements over Ti. Doing it retroactively would be even worse.

Rebadging is never popular, better start new when they go beyond 100 %. (Now I'm just going to wait for Captain Obvious to give me a much needed informative reply)

Branding. It's extremely well known at this point and honestly if I saw a product with a "90 Plus" label on it I would assume it's a real silly knockoff.

Haven't we seen a 90Plus knockoff already? Like years ago from some budget brand.

 

[evernessince]

Given how ballz expensive Titanium supplies are already, I cant imagine how much a Ruby must cost.

Yeah the pricing has gotten out of hand. Superflow still has affordable Leadex Titanium PSUs though but I think they are the only one. $200 for 1,000w titanium as compared to $550 Seasonic Prime.


Honestly I'd love to see this standard come to desktop PSUs even if the price is high. I have some always on servers running full tilt that could benefit from it and it's two way savings during the summer when you are paying for the cooling.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Yeah the pricing has gotten out of hand. Superflow still has affordable Leadex Titanium PSUs though but I think they are the only one. $200 for 1,000w titanium as compared to $550 Seasonic Prime.


Honestly I'd love to see this standard come to desktop PSUs even if the price is high. I have some always on servers running full tilt that could benefit from it and it's two way savings during the summer when you are paying for the cooling.

If they're actually running, you will never see the benefits. Even from cooling costs. At full tilt, gaining 1% on a 1kW PSU on efficiency saves you 10w per hour in heat. If it's only at 50% load, you're talking a 4-5w difference. Unless you're running entire server rooms, that amount of heat will be unnoticeable compared to HVAC running costs. It'd be the difference in heat inside a room from charging an iphone with one of those old 10w wall warts. The only way that is noticeable heating up a room is if you're in a vaccuum.

The real benefits of titanium are the low load efficiencies, which are significantly higher than Platinum, but if you're not idle most of the time, its not going to be as noticeable either, since the actual draw is so low. An LED lightbulb makes more heat in that scenario. Recouping the $100+ price difference over a platinum would take longer than any reasonable extended life expectancy of said hardware.

 

[Deeveo]

If they're actually running, you will never see the benefits. Even from cooling costs. At full tilt, gaining 1% on a 1kW PSU on efficiency saves you 10w per hour in heat. If it's only at 50% load, you're talking a 4-5w difference. Unless you're running entire server rooms, that amount of heat will be unnoticeable compared to HVAC running costs. It'd be the difference in heat inside a room from charging an iphone with one of those old 10w wall warts. The only way that is noticeable heating up a room is if you're in a vaccuum.

The real benefits of titanium are the low load efficiencies, which are significantly higher than Platinum, but if you're not idle most of the time, its not going to be as noticeable either, since the actual draw is so low. An LED lightbulb makes more heat in that scenario. Recouping the $100+ price difference over a platinum would take longer than any reasonable extended life expectancy of said hardware.

Well these are for servers, you could have hundreds of these in a room (or thousands). Think of supercomputer clusters running at 100% load most of the time, 1% here and 1% there starts to add up.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Well these are for servers, you could have hundreds of these in a room (or thousands). Think of supercomputer clusters running at 100% load most of the time, 1% here and 1% there starts to add up.

Yeah, and I acknowledged that with the "unless you are running a whole server room" thing.

We're talking about desktops, where you dont have hundreds or thousands of them in a house. You have one, maybe 2, where the efficiency gain is unnoticeable.

 

[QuietBob]

The real benefits of titanium are the low load efficiencies, which are significantly higher than Platinum, but if you're not idle most of the time, its not going to be as noticeable either, since the actual draw is so low

Yep, Titanium is the only certification which requires a specific efficiency at 10% load.

But then again, I would imagine most PCs in consumer space spend 95% of their time sitting close to idle. Gamers and hardware enthusiasts are a slim minority.

Same for typical office/administrative use where hundreds or thousands of PCs are left on for hours. It's one reason why you see small Gold+ rated PSUs in all those pre-builts.

 

[R-T-B]

Given how ballz expensive Titanium supplies are already, I cant imagine how much a Ruby must cost.

It's not for consumers anyway, at this point.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Honestly, I think there needs to be some kind of splitting up of the 80 Plus certification now. Like, 80 Plus to Platinum could be for consumer, and Titanium and Ruby could start a line specifically for servers and other professional applications that could actually benefit from such high efficiency standards.

As it stands now, throwing server-class Ruby into the mix of consumer PSUs is just asking for trouble.

 

[Panther_Seraphin]

Well these are for servers, you could have hundreds of these in a room (or thousands). Think of supercomputer clusters running at 100% load most of the time, 1% here and 1% there starts to add up.

Yup this is where you are going to see the most benefit, think Servers, AI, Crypto farms etc etc

1% efficency also means 1% less room cooling which means 1% less AC as you can rely on bypass/passive cooling for longer each time. So you can see how this one percent snowballs massively and when we are talking single racks of 30-60kw and it being only 1% it add up REAL quick!!!


For everyone Servers from 15+ years ago were advertising Platinum as rated supplies as options. These Delta PSUs that have gone through the Ruby Certification were probably on designs from 1-2 years ago but there was no way of certifying them at the time.

 

[AusWolf]

I can see 80 Plus Unobtanium coming with 101% efficiency at low load, and 103% at high load.

 

[mechtech]

"80 Plus Ruby Sets 96.5% Peak Efficiency Benchmark for Server Power Supplies"

odd thing is it's close to Titanium but sets limit at 5% load............which is good but seems odd for "Server" power supplies..............aren't they typically loaded up well beyond 5% most if not all of the time??

 

[Panther_Seraphin]

"80 Plus Ruby Sets 96.5% Peak Efficiency Benchmark for Server Power Supplies"

odd thing is it's close to Titanium but sets limit at 5% load............which is good but seems odd for "Server" power supplies..............aren't they typically loaded up well beyond 5% most if not all of the time??

In most cases I would suspect they are, but I can imagine in times between like rendering a scene etc there woudl be some downtime so on a heavily focused GPU server waiting for the next task it could realistically drop down into the low 10% load range

Although if you did a cross loaded setup with 6 2200 watt supplies. 5% is still over 600watts of output.

 

[Crackong]

Instead of adding a unnecessary Ruby tier,
I think they should get rid of the white 80 PLUS tier
It serves no purpose at all.

 

[AusWolf]

Instead of adding a unnecessary Ruby tier,
I think they should get rid of the white 80 PLUS tier
It serves no purpose at all.

I read a comment somewhere ages ago that the whole 80 Plus certification is massively outdated, and I agree.

 

[Blurpy]

cant wait to replace my Evga 850 Titanium with a 80 plus Champion power supply