The Glade 4.0

Ok.. yet another thread from me in my computer purchasing saga.

Picking a power supply.

Depending on what video card (or combination thereof) I get and what processor and how much overclocking, I am estimating I'd need 1000-1100 watts of power to accomadate the video cards at maximum draw, plus either a bulldozer or sandy bridge processor overclocked by 20% or so. I've seen some pretty varied estimates for how much power is needed, but I'm trying to be conservative, and I'd like the power supply to be a bit more robust than strictly necessary; I may add hard drives later on, and I never like to run equipment of any sort to full capacity all the time, even though there's presumably a safety margin in most manufacturer's specs.

The problem, however, is that power supplies on the websites I'm looking at vary wildly in price. For a while, I was just picking the 1100 watt power supply because it was cheaper than most of the 1000 watt, 1050 watt or 1200 watt options, and I was figuring "It's more than enough, so it shouldn't be under stress".

Then I started reading reviews, since it occurred to me that the Cyberpower house brand power supply might not be the best made if it was pumping out 1100 watts for less money than other brands were putting out 800 or 850. It also occured to me that if a power supply did go bad it could concievably spike power to everything else in the system and AFAIK there's no downstream protection and I could end up with $2400 of burned-out junk.

So, it's looking like it's going to be 1200 watts. I'm looking at Raidmax, In-Win, and possibly Coolermaster, but the reviews seem to be a bit confusing and often don't review the exact power supply I'm looking at, but rather a similar model of different voltage, or the regular version rather than the "gold" efficiency version, and in some cases I suspect the review is being excessivly harsh; trashing a model while grudgingly awarding a "pass" rating to it, saying basically "well it passed but we still think it sucks". I also note that there seems to be a wide variety of warranties, seemingly from 1 year to 5 years.

So.. how much extra do I really need to spend on a power supply? I don't want to skimp and end up with some junker that has crappy capacitors, poor soldering, and other internal problems waiting to rear their heads, but I also note that even after alloting an extra $50 or $75 to get a model that isn't the el cheapo selection, I could still easily spend over a hundred dollars more to get a still better brand, and I do not want to tie up excessive budget in the power supply if I don't have to.

Any thoughts?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817151102

That's the best desktop PSU on the planet right now.

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Except that's only 850W.

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Holy shitsnacks!

And, sadly, does not seem to be available as an option from the website I'm using. What qualities does it have that make it the best one? Is it the warranty, the parts used in manufacturing it, or the price-performance ration, or a combination?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

And it's actually 850w on a single rail with less than 5 microvolts of output ripple at load. Quite simply, it produces the most reliable, clean electricity of any power supply you can buy.

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Any feeling on the Raidmax RX-1200AE 80 Plus Gold or the In-Win Commander IRP-COM1200 80 Plus, both at 1200 watts? (The In-Win model is about $32 more than the Raidmax; the Raidmax also comes in a 1000 watt model)? These are the two I'm looking at mainly because:

A) they're the 2 available on the website that are mid-range; there are others that cost $60-$170 more than the In-Win
B) they aren't the el cheapo model either
C) they seemed decent from the reviews I read
D) they should provide more than enough power for what I want, so I wouldn't be stressing the limits of their capacity

The main concern I have with the Raidmax is that some reviews indicated some of the soldering and capacitors were, while adequate, not great, and the warranty was only 1 year. With the In-Win, I couldn't find out about the warranty, but it seemed to be pretty good all around.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I wouldn't buy either.

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Spend somewhere between 10% and 15% of your budget on a psu.

You're going to drive yourself nuts if you keep aganozing over this. If you want to worry about something, worry about air flow and temperatures inside your case. A problem with that more likely to cause a problem than ripple from the psu, and I'd bet it's more common.

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In time, this too shall pass.

I've selected a large case with some pretty big fans that suck air in from the front and side and blow it out the top and back.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Out of the brands that cyberpower offers, I would choose either Corsair or Silverstone PSU's. Those two are going to be the best built among your choices IMHO. Slightly more pricey, but worth it.

Actually, I've looked through Cyberpower's offerings, and nothing I've seen is something I'd use. Corsair PSUs are only good if you buy one of 2 modulars SeaSonic makes for them. Silverstone PSUs are only good if you buy the ones SeaSonic makes for them.

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How are we defining "good" here? Many of their power supply units have received good, or excellent, reviews.

Of course, some have received terrible reviews too, and there seems to be a universal caution out thee to not buy "Xtreme gaming series" or the Cyberpower -brand power supplies, like their sole 1100-watt model.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'm lazy. What's the easiest way to compute the power required by your rig? I'm kind of toying with the idea of adding another GPU in the future...

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Mostly, I've been looking at reviews of video cards, taking the max power they consumed under full load, adding that to the amount the CPU is rated for, and then leaving enough on top of that for adding SLI/Crossfire later (or, when I'm playing around, doubling the GPU demand in an SLI/Crossfire configuration) and then adding a fudge factor for overclocking and other peripherals on top of that.

I have a feeling I've been overestimating the need, but like I said above, I like to have more capacity than I need so as to stress the unit less under full load.

Cyberpower and Ibuypower both estimate power for you, but it looks to me like cyberpower tends to underestimate while Ibuypower is overestimating.

Right now I'm looking at a Core i7 2700k with 30% factory overclocking and either a Radeon 6970 or an nVidia GTX 580, both of which should be doable with 1000 watts, easily. My concern is having enough to add a second card down the road without buying a new power supply, so while I think 1000 watts is probably enough, 1050 or 1200 is most likely what I'll end up with. I was going to go with 1100, but they only have that one Cyberpower house brand in that size and I can't find a review for it. Given its low price, it most likely sucks goat balls.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/ PSU calculator

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Much thanks.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Thanks, Mookhow. That's incredibly helpful.

I have to say, I had no idea how important capacitor aging would be. 850 watts would be more than adequate with 10% aging but I'd definitely need 1100 watts with 50% aging (although I ahve no idea how long it takes to get to 50% aging)

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You won't ever get past the point the PSU I recommended stops because its capacitors are toast. The 700w SeaSonic Modular I put in my Core 2 Quad 6600 Rig in 2007 still powers 3 GPUs -- GTX 280s (those are newer than the PSU).

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Stops as in reaches its limit of load, or dies of old age?

I'm quite impressed that a nearly 5-year-old power supply rated for 700 watts can still power 3 GPUs, but sadly, it's just not an option. Of the options available, I think Silverstone is probably what I'll go with. I managed to work things around and eliminate some unnecessary bells and whisltles to keep the total price under $2450 - especially managing to find my Windows Office disks, so that knocks $105 off right there. I really did not want to have to get a new version of Office.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Don't know; my 386DX4-100 has a SeaSonic PSU, and it works just fine. It even has a Trident SVGA VLB add-on graphics adapter.

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Wow, that's a classic right there.

What do you use it for? Still playing Strike Commander?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

SSH tunneling.

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I just checked. BOTH my line conditioner and my UPS have ... SeaSonic power supplies as well.

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1000 watts? What do you have 4 video cards or something?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Who, me? No, but I may add a second one later on and with an overclocked CPU and all the other bullshit, plus the aging effect on capacitors, 1000 watts seemed wise. I almost went for the Corsair at 1050 watts, but I was really impressed with Silverstone after reading reviews of their products.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."