What is A UPS?
An uninterrupted power supply or UPS is an electrical equipment that is used to provide emergency power when there is a power outage. UPS is simply a battery that will provide immediate power to loads connected to it for minutes making sure that the loads connected to it shutdowns properly to prevent any damage to the software, hardware, and most of the time even loss or corruption of data. Commercial UPS are mainly found in data centers and hospitals where there is a lot of power-sensitive equipment that requires a continuous supply of electricity and a switching speed of 0ms. On the other hand, some solar generators or portable power stations provide a UPS feature that is used to protect the PC itself, and more importantly, the game’s progress. The UPS feature of portable power stations enables it to automatically switches to its battery supply within 20ms if power from the grid stops, ensuring the power surge doesn’t affect your gaming.
Why Would You Need UPS for Gaming?
Normally, when you are planning to build your first gaming PC, the first thing that comes to your mind are the major components which are the CPU and GPU, and later on the motherboard, RAM, Power supply, and cooling system to use. With all of this, UPS doesn’t come to mind at this stage and just comes later on when you experience an outage on the most critical part of the game or a sudden power surge that damages a component of your PC. Gaming UPS might look like a luxury but it's not, it protects your investment on your PC as well as ensures your hard-earned progress in a game especially games like Dark Souls or Elden Ring are protected from a sudden power outage.
What are the Best UPS for Gaming PC?
Now that we know the importance of gaming UPS, we should also look at factors that we need to consider for the best UPS for gaming PC. Discussed below are some of the important factors when choosing a UPS for gaming PC:
Capacity
UPS capacity is rated in Voltage-Ampere or VA and the pricing varies depending on your required capacity. There are three main factors to consider when sizing UPS:
- First is the total load in terms of voltage and current that you want to connect to it, this should include your PC, modem, and any other peripherals connected to your PC.
- Second is the maximum power output of these loads in watts to determine the peak load.
- The third is the runtime or the amount of time that the UPS will run in an event of a power outage.
Equipped with a EPS feature(supports switching within 20ms), Growatt INFINITY 1500 portable power stations provide you with as much as 1512Wh capacity that allows you to play for several hours nonstop without the need for electricity from the grid.
Surge Protection
Surge protection is pretty standard for a UPS, all UPSs have this feature but still, keep this in mind when looking for a gaming UPS to make sure this feature is present regardless of the scale of the UPS. Multiple power stations are equipped with multi-protection with BMS, which works the same way as surge protection and detects sudden changes in the current and voltage.
Ports
During the sizing of the UPS, you should know what are the loads to be connected on the gaming UPS, and with this, planning how many ports is critical when looking for the best gaming UPS. It is always useful to at least have a contingency port on top of your planned number of ports just in case the need for it arises. Trust me on this, you will never know when you will need an additional port for some additional gear.
Display
One of the features that should always be present at this time is the display. Everything now has a display and so should your gaming UPS. With the display, you will be able to get the operating parameters of the power, like battery level, voltage input, and output, as well as current input and output. Displayed also here are the power input and output and normally the efficiency.
Sine Wave
While browsing for the best gaming UPS, you might have encountered already the term sine wave, it’s a technical term because it really is and this is normally used in electrical engineering. To keep it simple, you will most likely encounter two types of a sine wave, the pure sine wave, and the simulated sine wave.
- Pure Sine Wave – this type of sine wave is found on high-end UPS because it provides the best performance, efficiency as well as the best protection for your devices. But of course, this will also cost you double or triple compared to the lower-end UPS that utilizes simulated sine wave.
- Simulated Sine Wave – this type of sine wave is common to low to the average grade of UPS, but most of the time is more than enough for a gaming UPS. This type of UPS is less efficient and performs less compared to a pure sine wave.
It's recommended to go with the pure sine wave as this will benefit you more in the long run and give stable and safe power to your system.
So, the best UPS for gaming PC will have enough capacity to keep your computer running for several hours in a power outage, and has the surge protection function, along with enough ports and detailed display, and the internal technology is pure sine wave.
Conclusion
Having a gaming UPS is a worth-it investment if you are looking to protect your hard-earned gaming PC and prolong the time you spend on those nail-biting games. Keep in mind that the “UPS” can provide you fast power switching speed and will not interfere with the usage of the PC in any case in terms of shutdown or data loss.
Note: The EPS function of Growatt portable power series supports switching within 20ms. In order to avoid your losses, please test with your loads before using this function.
