High-end dual PSU options

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samuelmorris

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Apologies if this one gets done to death, but I'm going to be in the market in the relatively near future for a new large PSU for my main gaming PC, with a view to running either a pair of GTX980Tis or a pair of R9 Fury (non-X unless an air-cooled version turns up) cards, alongside an overclocked quad-core CPU that's probably a little under the 200W mark if it were burn tested. I could latterly replace that with a more efficient chip like a 4790K but the gain for the cost outlay still doesn't really seem worth it to me at the moment.

Based on past experience I'm guessing I'm looking at 850W as a minimum, 1000W as a preference. My current ZM850-HP unit has served very well for the past 6 1/2 years and ran a 570W pair of HD4870X2s no trouble in its early life, but since discovering my current GTX970 only works off one pair of its PCIe power connectors and not the other, this plus its age tells me I ought to retire it before running higher-end equipment again. My requirements are:

- Very low noise at idle, preferably semi-passive
- Tolerable noise level under load - the cards mentioned aren't that quiet, but it should be inaudible underneath them, because my ZM850-HP certainly is now!
- Suitable to use fan-side-down at the bottom of a vented case (HAF932)

That's pretty much it. I've been out of the PSU game for a while so I'm interested to see what my options are. Was looking at things like the Corsair RM1000 as I've had good results with a pair of RM650s so far, but I realise not all Corsair units are alike, even in the same series.

Country of availability is the UK.

Thanks in advance for opinions!
 
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Most high end PSUs are essentially silent at idle, whether or not they shut off the fan. A fan spinning at 500-600 RPM doesn't make any noise at all, but will help keep the PSU cooler.

The more efficient the PSU, the less heat it puts out, and the less the fan has to work cooling it down. To that end, aiming for a 80+ gold/platinum PSU would be better for noise under load, though even silvers aren't that noisy in my experience.

All modern quality PSUs are suitable for modern cases with the PSU on the bottom, intake on the bottom.

I would recommend looking at Superflower options in the UK. Generally have much better bang/buck, and very high quality. I'm not sure I can recommend anything from Corsair other than their AX and HX lines for high wattage.
 
Thanks Tsumi, I agree, most high-end units I've seen today are pretty damn quiet at idle, 600-700rpm is fine as that's what the fan in the ZM850 runs at and its near as makes no difference inaudible when other similarly slow case fans are running. I only raise this point as I did once test an original HX1000 around the same time which idled around 1100rpm and under even 500W of load ramped up to 2200rpm, which for a 135mm fan or whatever it was, is far too noisy! Granted though, PSUs have come on a long way since then and dissipate less heat, doesn't mean that manufacturers always set sensible fan speed thresholds though, hence the question!

I was always a bit wary of SuperFlower PSUs because many years ago they were renowned for making quite functional, but very cheap and suspect hardware, which meant that for PSUs I wouldn't go near them. It does look like things have changed, but old prejudices are had to break :D

I've already been looking at the Corsair HX1000i - I remember people being offput with the digital regulation stuff denoted by the 'i' label originally. Is this still something to be wary of, do you think?
 
The -i isn't something to be put off by except for the ridiculously high (IMO) premium it puts on the product. It is also known that the Corsair Link software is generally buggy and sometimes unusable, further detracting from the value.

Look at Corsair's recent CX reviews. Combined with the RGB keyboard fiasco, it will appear that Corsair is no longer a company that focuses on only putting out high quality products. To that end, I will say that they are no better than Superflower, and maybe even lower.
 
I too share the concern about modern Corsair products after the original CX series debacle - the CX V2 unit I've used has been fine thankfully, but having a worst-in-class RMA record did make me a little worried. The two RM650 units I've had have been great so I'm not counting Corsair out yet, and the comments about the RM1000i look promsiing. As long as it's similarly quiet (I remember people complaining that although the RM650 was quiet, the bigger units like the RM750 and 850 were nowhere near as good in that regard due to a more aggressive fan profile) then I'll be more than happy to go with it. For a 1KW unit it's cheaper than I would expect (which isn't always a good thing!) as the 850W unit I'm using now cost more than that, 6 years ago. If it's as good as suggested though, sounds ideal.
 
Tsumi said:
Most high end PSUs are essentially silent at idle, whether or not they shut off the fan. A fan spinning at 500-600 RPM doesn't make any noise at all, but will help keep the PSU cooler.

The more efficient the PSU, the less heat it puts out, and the less the fan has to work cooling it down. To that end, aiming for a 80+ gold/platinum PSU would be better for noise under load, though even silvers aren't that noisy in my experience.

All modern quality PSUs are suitable for modern cases with the PSU on the bottom, intake on the bottom.

I would recommend looking at Superflower options in the UK. Generally have much better bang/buck, and very high quality. I'm not sure I can recommend anything from Corsair other than their AX and HX lines for high wattage.
Click to expand...

I've been running a Superflower-designed Kingwin for quite a while now. It has been a great PSU and held up well to me intentionally abusing it early on running an OC'd 1090T with GTX 480 SLI. I have reduced the load on it now that it is getting older. I use it almost every day still.
 
Are Seasonic PSUs available over there?

If so, my vote goes toward a 1250XM2 or similar.

Whatever you get, make sure to look up reviews for the specific models you are interested in.

Here and JonnyGuru are both good sites that do actual testing.
 
The 1250W XM2 is available here, but firstly is appreciably quite expensive, and secondly, 1250W? I can't see me needing that much power unless I was running 4 GPUs, and after having given that up in 2011 when I upgraded from HD4870X2s to HD6970s, watching how the technology has progressed, I'm not sure I fancy trying it again! I've been reading reviews of the RM1000i and am fairly confident that's the unit I'll be going with at the moment. While I know it's a cheap option compared to, for example, the Seasonic, the Zalman I ended up with last time round was far superior to the Corsair and BeQuiet units I tried back then which cost as much, if not more money.
 
Every Seasonic-made or Seasonic-based PSU I've worked with has been very good to be fair, the only one I've had in a personal build was the original yellow Corsair HX520 which ran a 400-odd watt HD4870X2+Q9550 setup handily, I only upgraded to the current Zalman when the second HD4870X2 came in ;) - that being said, despite those experiences Seasonic used to fare poorly in Hardware.FR's return rate charts, so not sure what that's about. Those charts have always correlated well with real world experience for me, so was something I had to keep a close eye on (e.g. Sapphire GPUs and Asus motherboards being the least reliable compared with other brands, but I'll try to avoid opening that can of worms in this thread!).

I knew someone with an OCZ PowerStream unit, they had bad press in the day if I recall, and when it failed it took some components out with it, so I suppose those complaints were justified. The PCP&C units were solid, but wow they were noisy. Low efficiency and the 'tried and tested' 80mm fan arrangement really proved a problem over the 300-odd watt mark.

Will check out the review, pretty comprehensive and from my part of the world too :)
 
samuelmorris said:
The 1250W XM2 is available here, but firstly is appreciably quite expensive, and secondly, 1250W? I can't see me needing that much power unless I was running 4 GPUs, and after having given that up in 2011 when I upgraded from HD4870X2s to HD6970s, watching how the technology has progressed, I'm not sure I fancy trying it again! I've been reading reviews of the RM1000i and am fairly confident that's the unit I'll be going with at the moment. While I know it's a cheap option compared to, for example, the Seasonic, the Zalman I ended up with last time round was far superior to the Corsair and BeQuiet units I tried back then which cost as much, if not more money.
Click to expand...

Yeah.. only reason I got the 1250 for my system was because I got it for a really, really good price... less than much less powerful units were going for.

I could probably get away with an 850-1000w.. and even one that big is probably a bit overkill.
 
I'm confused. Thread title says "Dual PSU". Is OP looking for using 2 power supplies or simply a decent PSU for 2 GPU's?
 
Whoops, only just noticed that! Was meant to read dual-GPU PSU options, will edit the title.
 
Once again though, I really don't think 1250W will be necessary - I explored my potential options with running three cards and with air cooling I'm really not satisfied with it, there don't seem to be any boards that allow three cards to have two blank spaces between each PCIe slot, so when sticking with two GPUs, I really think 1000W ought to cover it :)
 
Corsair AX1500i. To those who say it is rated too high I say overprovisioning means it will be silent at the power needed and it has very high efficiency. Besides it is fully digital, configurable multirail with settabe trip points. OK, the 1200i will also do :D.
 
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