Inverter for gaming PC

[CodeJBDA]

Hi All,

As with all other SOuth African's loadshedding has seriously put a damper on my life and I am looking to beat it.
I am saving up to build a staunch gaming PC in April and I'm thinking that I should budget for an inverter to power it
during LS and to protect it. I currently have on of those MECER Inverters for our TV space and it works fine with my Xbox
and PS5 running concurrently, I used one of those kill-a-watt meters and they system peaked at 750W.

Since my PC is not here yet, I was wondering if I could get ahead of it and do some interesting math to calculate the size of the
Inverter or should I just wait until it has arrived?

Also, for a gaming PC, what inverter systems would you recommend?

Thanks!

 

[AntonG]

Ideally a pure sine wave 1000w inverter with a 100AH battery (lithium if budget allows for it)

Here is my setup that powers 2x 42" tv's (one with dstv decoder) and 1 with simple PC. Max load is about 450w.

750w pure sine wave inverter
30A charger
200AH Lithium battery
(I made the ATS myself)

uses just under 20% of battery on full load ever 2h and charges slightly faster than discharge time.

Obviously you get cheaper all in one solutions (inverter + charger).

 

[Confucius]

Hi All,

As with all other SOuth African's loadshedding has seriously put a damper on my life and I am looking to beat it.
I am saving up to build a staunch gaming PC in April and I'm thinking that I should budget for an inverter to power it
during LS and to protect it. I currently have on of those MECER Inverters for our TV space and it works fine with my Xbox
and PS5 running concurrently, I used one of those kill-a-watt meters and they system peaked at 750W.

Since my PC is not here yet, I was wondering if I could get ahead of it and do some interesting math to calculate the size of the
Inverter or should I just wait until it has arrived?

Also, for a gaming PC, what inverter systems would you recommend?

Thanks!

Depends how long you plan to use the PC during loadshedding.

Pure sine wave is nice but if it’s only for a pc, it’s not really needed as the pc has a switch mode power supply and is going to chop the sine wave anymore. Lithium is better with the amount of loadshedding we have.

So it ultimately depends on your budget but probably a 1000w (not VA) inverter and as big a battery you can afford.

 

[yourang]

if want to gamne for full 2 hours going kill your wallet

for gamign going need atleast 200ah lithuim, if want do light gaming liek LOL and just broswing then 100ah lithuim is fine.

 

[Qui_Illustrati]

Everybody is saying 100ah or 200ah lithium and it seems everybody is referring to 12v ( considering the small inverter wattages).

100ah 12v lithium at 90% DoD is like approx. 1KwH capacity and at the OPs current load of 750w already, without a gaming PC, that's not even an hour and a half runtime.

200ah at 12v would be double the above. So also not good enough for loadshedding.

If you're talking 24v or even better 48v then the numbers look better of course.

 

[Qui_Illustrati]

Ideally a pure sine wave 1000w inverter with a 100AH battery (lithium if budget allows for it)

Here is my setup that powers 2x 42" tv's (one with dstv decoder) and 1 with simple PC. Max load is about 450w.

750w pure sine wave inverter
30A charger
200AH Lithium battery
(I made the ATS myself)

uses just under 20% of battery on full load ever 2h and charges slightly faster than discharge time.

Obviously you get cheaper all in one solutions (inverter + charger).

Just under 20% discharged after 2 hours on a 450w load?
12v 200ah?

 

[zsde]

Here is my setup that powers 2x 42" tv's (one with dstv decoder) and 1 with simple PC. Max load is about 450w.

That 20% SOC discharge does not tally. 450W X 2 = 900Wh. 900 divided by your available 2400Wh is around 37% of the capacity. Something doesn't tally.

 

[M@tree2]

That 20% SOC discharge does not tally. 450W X 2 = 900Wh. 900 divided by your available 2400Wh is around 37% of the capacity. Something doesn't tally.

Not to mention efficiency losses too?

 

[pikolec]

That 20% SOC discharge does not tally. 450W X 2 = 900Wh. 900 divided by your available 2400Wh is around 37% of the capacity. Something doesn't tally.

If you're using lithium cells and the take the battery capacity measure on the inverter (which is probably calibrated for SLA voltage curve), then, yeah, the numbers are BS.

Lithium (LiFePO4) batteries have a VERY flat discharge curve (google-fu fail - here's the best I illustration I could find: https://www.cloudynights.com/uploads/monthly_07_2020/post-216067-0-24865000-1594315755.jpg ) that makes it surprisingly difficult to give a good measure of the remaining capacity using the voltage.

So that could explain why @AntonG 's numbers look a little odd.

 

[CodeJBDA]

Wow, thanks to everyone for replying. I’m starting to think that the best time to but the system will be after I get my pc. I have an idea of what I’m going to get however, depending on sales, I may move from a 3070 to a 3080 or a 3080ti. This will have an influence on the system as it appears. I do appreciate the insight, I will definitely do more research before deciding on what to do.

 

[TB100]

Did you ever find a solution? I'm sitting with exactly the same dilemma; have an RTX 3080 and 850W PSU (even though it probably never draws that much power in reality).

 

[P1ckl3Ryan]

Get a watt meter and test your PC while playing the games you most commonly play so you know exactly what loads you are planning for. Don't guess, you will probably be wrong. I was way off using the rated values of all my hardware.

I have a 3kw Inverter with a 24V 100ah Lifepo4 battery. I would have preferred a 48V system, but that comes at massive extra cost, and I just don't need it. I specced my Inverter system with our home office in mind as my wife and I both work from home. The fact that it works for our gaming needs as well is a bonus.

We have lower end hardware, Ryzen 5 5600 with a RX 6700 XT and Ryzen 5 1600X with RX 580. Gaming on both systems at 1080p we get through 2.5 hours of loadshedding without running the battery completely flat. Undervolting both GPU's extends the runtime a bit and locking the framerate to 60fps makes the biggest difference by far to the power draw. I only do that if we have 4 hours of loadshedding, else I leave everything as is.