UPS Needed or not?

[Reverence]

Hello I bought a new rig last week and now I cant decide if I need UPS or not.

Many people told me if you get such a good rig why not get UPS to save you from all the power brakes.

My rig spec:


CPU: Core i7 950, 3.06GHz, s1366, 8MB Tray
MOBO: GIGABYTE X58A-UD5 s1366 Core i7, Intel X58, DDR3 2200+, 4xPCI-E Rev.2
RAM: Corsair 3x2GB Corsair Dominator-GT Triple Channel CL7
GPU: Sapphire ‏‏HD 5870 Vapor-X OC 1GB GDDR5 DX11 2xDVI HDMI DP PCI-E
HD 1 (OS): Mushkin Callisto Series 60GB SSD Sata II MLC 2.5'' Retail
HD 2 (DATA): WD Caviar Black 1TB 7200RPM, 64MB, SATA III WD1002FAEX
DVD: LG DVD±RW GH22LS50 x22 Black LightScribe SATA (Retail)
COOLER: Scythe Mugen II Rev.b 5 Heat Pipes CPU Cooler s1156/s1366‎
FANS (CASE): Scythe S-Flex Quiet 12cm Case Fan 1200 RPM x 2
CASE: Antec P183 Mid Tower Black (No PSU)
PSU: Corsair HX 850W Active PFC 12cm Fan Modular
SCREEN: Samsung XL2370 23'' LED 2ms DVI HDMI WideScreen Black

Should I get a UPS for my system?

Thanks,

 

[Brink]

Hello Reverence,

A UPS that has line filtering/conditioning on a grounded outlet would help protect your system a lot better with power spikes and dips.

It's not a must have item, but it sure can be nice. Especially if you live in an area with a lot of electrical storms.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Keiichi25]

Well, Ideally, it is nice to have a UPS, particularly one of the better one of the UPSes like APC, for instance where they promise line conditioning.

Line conditioning helps the Power supply not take hard hits and also gives you a few minutes to properly shutdown your computer when the power does go out.

Surge protectors are not generally great for brown out situations and of course the sharp power outage in the middle of something doesn't help your system in general. As Brink points out, it isn't a 'must have' item, however, as a gamer, I found having a UPS was good for those random power outage situations and you need to gracefully bow out of something like a WoW raid versus just 'drop' without warning. Of course, I still have that problem when the ISP connection in my area isn't stable, but that is a different problem altogether.

At the same time, if your computer fries. APC is guaranteed that if something fries, they pay for it. Other surge protectors and the like do the same, but I found APC to be a bit easier to work with, although sometimes pulling their batteries a bit of a pain.

 

[pparks1]

My general opinion is that inexpensive UPS's aren't much more expensive than a "quality" powerstrip anyway. Companies like APC offer good solid guarantees on equipment plugged into them.

So I figure, might as well have a device that can easily whether a drop in power or a momentary power outage without taking your box down.

 

[Digerati]

I agree with pparks1 - get an UPS but make sure it is a good UPS with AVR. Note it is the AVR - automatic voltage regulation - that makes the UPS a valuable asset and investment. A surge and spike protector is little more than a fancy and expensive extension cord that does nothing for dips (opposite of spikes) and sags (opposite of surges), or brownouts (extended sags). In those situation, a good UPS with AVR will use the batteries to boost the voltage the desired levels. While ATX power supplies are required to compensate for "normal" power line anomalies, doing so places unnecessary demands on the PSU, which increases heat, and may increase aging, not only on the PSU, but the motherboard regulator circuits.

On high voltage anomalies such as surges and spikes, all a surge and spike protector does is chop off ("clamp") the tops of the sinewaves, leaving the power to the PSU and your other devices looking not-so-pretty, or "dirty". Whereas a "good" UPS with AVR will clean up (condition) the power. In extreme conditions, the only recourse a surge and spike protector has is to break the circuit and remove power. This causes a hard crash of the computer - never good for the hardware, and may result in a corrupt hard drive and lost data.

For most users, a good 1000VA UPS with AVR will provide plenty of protection for the computer itself, all the network hardware, monitor.

Note that power during a power outage is only the icing on the cake.

The downside to UPS is the batteries do need to be replaced about every 3 years. And while it can be a bit of a hassle, it is still a fairly simple task for most users. And I have found that replacing batteries on other brands is often more difficult than with APC.

@Brink - I am not aware of any UPS without batteries, at least not for the home. I have heard of monster systems that use compressed air to keep a huge flywheel spinning that will keep a generator going for up to 2 minutes - enough time for a backup gas or diesel powered generator to kick in. But as noted those are very large units, and expensive, and primarily used for facility power. There are others that use very large storage capacitors, but again, are only good for a couple minutes until the backup generators can kick in. And those units, while rack mountable, are very expensive too - several thousand dollars. Have you seen some other technology that provides uninterruptible power, that is affordable, for the home user?