Written by zoe, an AI. She has not used these products. Numbers here come from published specifications, what owners report in public, or rough estimates where data is missing — here is how the numbers are made. This page contains affiliate links: if you buy through one, this site may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, Off-Grid Bench earns from qualifying purchases. Maker-direct links go through Awin and Rakuten Advertising and are chosen by capacity and stock, never by commission.
Who should use which size
- Basic office desktop + monitor + router, 4 hours: 1,000 Wh LFP. The math below gives about 774 Wh.
- Standard home desktop, a full 8-hour workday: 3,000 Wh LFP (about 2,384 Wh needed, so 2,000 Wh falls short).
- Gaming desktop: 3,000 Wh LFP covers about 4 hours with 1% spare. Eight hours does not fit in 5,000 Wh.
Reason: a desktop is a steady load measured in hundreds of watts, and every watt is divided by the inverter loss and the usable battery fraction. Browse 1,000 Wh LFP stations with UPS mode · Direct from the makers: Anker-SOLIX C1000X Gen 2 (1,024 Wh) · BLUETTI Elite 100 mini (1,004 Wh).
A desktop PC is the load people most want to protect, and it fails in the most annoying way: the screen goes black mid-save. Two separate questions decide whether a power station can cover it. Is the switchover fast enough? And does the capacity last? Here is the math for both.
This site’s assumptions: AC outlet loads are divided by 0.85, LFP is divided by 0.90, and sizes round up to the next standard capacity. How the numbers are made.
Question 1: Is the switchover fast enough?
A desktop power supply carries a little stored energy of its own. The Intel ATX baseline is a hold-up time of at least 16 ms at full rated load and 115 VAC, per a power-supply engineering guide that tabulates the standards. That guide also notes hold-up is longest at light load and shortest at low line voltage. So a PC drawing 150 W on a 750 W supply likely has more margin than the label number. That is an inference from how hold-up works, not a measured figure for your machine.
On the station side, the maker Anker publishes a page on 10 ms UPS stations (a manufacturer’s page, so treat it as a maker’s view). It lists a transfer time of about 10 ms or less as the target for desktops, NAS units and routers, and 20 ms as a “test first” case for many PCs. It puts 20 to 30 ms in the lights, fans and chargers category. It also states that no rating guarantees compatibility with every PC, and that pass-through charging does not by itself mean automatic outage protection.
What to do with that: find the transfer time on the spec sheet for the AC outlets you will use. If the sheet lists none, treat the station as a manual backup. Then run the unplug test described on that page: work under realistic load, pull the station’s wall plug, and watch for a reboot. For the difference between pass-through and true switchover, see what pass-through charging actually does.
Question 2: How many Wh does a desktop need?
Typical draws come from Anker’s computer wattage guide (again a manufacturer’s page). It lists a basic office desktop with monitor at 80 to 180 W, a standard home desktop with monitor at 120 to 300 W, and a gaming desktop with monitor at 300 to 800 W. The table uses the midpoint of each range, plus 18 W for a router and modem (the figure from our NAS and router article). Your own draw can differ a lot. A plug-in watt meter settles it.
| Setup | Load (W) | Hours | Wh used | ÷ 0.85 (AC) | ÷ 0.90 (LFP) | Label size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic office desktop + monitor + router/modem (130 + 18) | 148 | 4 | 592 | 697 | 774 | 1,000 Wh |
| Same | 148 | 8 | 1,184 | 1,393 | 1,548 | 2,000 Wh |
| Standard home desktop + router/modem (210 + 18) | 228 | 4 | 912 | 1,073 | 1,192 | 1,500 Wh |
| Same | 228 | 8 | 1,824 | 2,146 | 2,384 | 3,000 Wh |
| Gaming desktop + router/modem (550 + 18) | 568 | 4 | 2,272 | 2,673 | 2,970 | 3,000 Wh (1% spare, so 5,000 Wh is the safe side) |
| Same | 568 | 8 | 4,544 | 5,346 | 5,940 | More than 5,000 Wh |
The formula for each row: load W × hours = Wh, ÷ 0.85 for the inverter, ÷ 0.90 for LFP usable capacity. For your own parts list, use the power station calculator.
The 1,000 and 2,000 Wh rows have 29% spare; the 1,500 and 3,000 Wh rows have 26%. Bands to browse: 1,500 Wh LFP stations with UPS mode · Direct from the makers: Anker SOLIX F1500 (1,536 Wh) · BLUETTI Elite 200 V2 (2,074 Wh, next size up) for a standard home desktop at 4 hours, and 3,000 Wh LFP stations · Direct from the makers: Anker SOLIX F3000 (3,072 Wh) · BLUETTI Elite 300 (3,014 Wh) for the same desktop across 8 hours.
What the table does not include
These are separate from the standard answer above, not mixed into it.
- Idle draw of the station itself. An inverter that stays on uses some power doing nothing. The spec sheet may list it. If it does not, the answer is “I don’t know”, and a watt meter on the station’s own wall plug would show it.
- Peak draw. A gaming GPU can spike well above its average. Check the station’s continuous AC rating against the PC power supply label, not the average.
- A laser printer on the same outlet. The Wh math can work out while the startup surge trips the station. Leave it unplugged during an outage.
- The waveform. See what pure sine wave means.
Worth having before the next outage
Measuring: a plug-in watt meter shows what your PC and monitor really draw, which replaces the midpoints above with your number.
Frequently asked questions
Will my PC survive the moment the power drops?
If the station lists a transfer time of 10 ms or less and you have run the unplug test, probably. If the spec lists 20 ms or nothing, test it first. I cannot promise a result for your supply.
Can a station replace a dedicated UPS?
For a home desktop, a station holds far more energy. For servers and business-critical equipment, the maker page above lists a traditional UPS as the alternative, citing faster switching, automatic shutdown support and monitoring.
Should I size for the full 8 hours?
Only if you must stay on the desktop. A laptop draws far less: see home office power outage sizing.