Many American homes already have 240V sockets (eg: NEMA 14-30) for running clothes dryers, car chargers, etc. These can provide over 7200W continuous power!
I guess PC power supplies need to start adopting this standard.
I feel like every time I read about USA standards I inevitably discover that any and all SI standards are actually adopted somewhere in the USA - measures in the NASA, 24h clock in the army etc. Just not in the general populace. :)
The entire residential electrical grid in the USA uses 240v, split phase. One hot wire at 120v, one neutral at 0v, and one hot at -120v, out of phase with the other hot. Very rare to have anything else. It’s just that inside the building, the outlets/lights are connected to one side of the split phase connection or the other, giving you only 120v to work with. But then we have special outlets for electric clothes dryers, EV chargers, etc, which give you both hot connections in a single receptacle, for 240v.
You can't use a NEMA 14-30 to power a PC because 14-30 outlets are split-phase (that's why they have 4 prongs - 2 hot legs, shared neutral, shared ground). To my knowledge, the closest you'll get to split-phase in computing is connecting the redundant PSU in a server to a separate phase or a DC distribution system connected to a multi-phase rectifier, but those are both relegated to the datacenter.
You could get an electrician to install a different outlet like a NEMA 6-20 (I actually know someone who did this) or a European outlet, but it's not as simple as installing more appliance circuits, and you'll be paying extra for power cables either way.
If you have a spare 14-30 and don't want to pay an electrician, you could DIY a single-phase 240v circuit with another center tap transformer, though I wouldn't be brave enough to even attempt this, much less connect a $2k GPU to it.
As far as I’m aware (and as shown by a limited amount of testing that I’ve done myself), any modern PC PSU (with active PFC) is totally fine running on split-phase power: you just use both hots, giving you 240v across them, and the ground. The neutral line is unnecessary.
If you installed a European outlet in a US home then it would be using the same split phase configuration that a NEMA 14-30 does. But many appliances will work just fine, so long as they can handle 60 Hz and don't actually require a distinct neutral and ground for safety reasons. Likewise NEMA 10-30, the predecessor to NEMA 14-30 which is still found in older homes, does not have a ground pin.
Yes, but a standard household wall socket in the US supplies 120V @ 15A, for a max continuous power of 1.4 kW or so. So typical power supplies are only designed to draw up to that much power, or less.
If someone made a PC power supply designed to plug into a NEMA 14-50 you could run a lot of GPUs! And generate a lot of heat!
As long as the PSU has proper overcurrent protection, you could get away with saying it is designed for this. I suspect you meant designed for higher power draw rather than merely designed to be able to be plugged into the receptacle, but your remark was ambiguous.
Usually, the way people do things to get higher power draw is that they have a power distribution unit that provides C14 receptacles and plugs into a high power outlet like this:
Then they plug multiple power supplies into it. They are actually able to use the full available AC power this way.
A (small) problem with scaling PSUs to the 50A (40A continuous) that NEMA 14-50 provides is that there is no standard IEC connector for it as far as I know. The common C13/C14 connectors are limited to 10A. The highest is C19/C20 for 16A, which is used by the following:
If I read the specification sheets correctly, the first one is exclusively for 200-240VAC while the second one will go to 1600W off 120V, which is permitted by NEMA 5-15 as long as it is not a continuous load.
There is not much demand for higher rated PSUs in the ATX form factor most here would want, but companies without brand names appear to make ones that go up to 3.6kW:
I guess PC power supplies need to start adopting this standard.