These lights produce More light per watt than HID period. A lot more. These are not race car engines, more is NOT always better. There is a limit to how much light a plant can use after that its a total waste of electricity. IMO, even if your running say 600 watts of QB, you may be wasting money on electricity if your no using CO2 in a sealed room to get the most out of your plants. Above about 900 ppf your plants have maxed out photo synthesis and will actually make phyiscal and chemical change to reduce the amount of light being absorbed, unless CO2 increased. Just consuming more watts is not going to gain anyone anything. I'll bet a lot of these HID guys running 1000 watt HPS lights aren't getting the yeilds they could be because they think its like horsepower MORE MORE MORE!
ppfd is the metric you want to use, not watts. How much LIGHT is your HID or COB, etc making. When I can have a light that puts out twice the ppfd at 1/2 the power, requires no bulb changes, doesn't degrade your years, and has better spectrum, you tell me why I'd waste my money on old, dead technology........
Yeah im just saying for conversation purposes. If they are set on using 1000w per 5x5 and hear these 500w lights equal that they scratch their heads and say well electricity is cheap so why not use more and get more buds? I just dont get why they feel limited to using 500w? Cost of equipment?