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Maximum PC PSU ROUNDUP

legcramp

[H]F Junkie
2FA
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Messages
12,439
grrrr maximumpc did a round up on psu in thier latest issue and they placed the neopower first, pcp&pc 510 second, and idk wut OCZ powerstream 520 came in, but it got a 7/10 and antec got 10/10 and the 510deluxe got 9/10... so is the neopower stronger than the powerstream because i am really wanting to go for the powerstream but since the neopower got such a good review...i might go with that..?!?!!?


So my question is, which one has the most raw power for overclocking?

OCZ or ANTEC

o yeha and holycrap! I didn't even see teh new ocz modstream... that too!
 
so your saying the neopower is a better psu for my overclocking needs?
 
wow, i thought the neopower was a weak overrated mofo but i guess i was wrong, or this just backs me up as to its overrated, i found a lot better ATX 2.0 psu's, ex: enermax 600w noisetaker........and the list goes on..........

i thought that PCP&C 510 was very good and also the OCZ powerstream, i got to take a look see at the modstreams.........
 
I'd buy the Powerstream or wait till PCP&C comes out with their new tuber-cool models. I don't recall how big they will be but heard that they will be monsters. I'd say PCP&C now if they weren't coming out witha new model because they haven proven to be the king.
 
Im off to find a copy since this is like the 5th time its been raised
the test proceedure from what I have heard was reasonably good
how they weighted particular attributes a liittle off
(noise, modular harness, ect)
from what I understand, adopting just the quality of the power supplied as the criteria the PCP&C took the top spot

so Im off to the store, enough of this second hand stuff :p

Cpt Twitchy said:
wait till PCP&C comes out with their new tuber-cool models.

LOL tuber-cool :p
direct from Idaho, the potato that is so cool it can power a PC with just 2 wires :p
I present the PC Power and Cooling Tuber-Cool 510
potato_battery.jpg
 
well I read the review
(paying $9 for a flawed review, I didnt do :p )

on the one hand they did do some extreme testing that you rarely see
they put together a 400 watt load and operated it with a 100F environment

then they dropped the load to a 125W static draw (not a real system) and employed a variac to simulate a brownout down to 60VAC which is extreme
but they didnt go into that all that much other than to say which supplies operated through it

but they didnt really go into how they sampled the load regulation
(consider that transient response is measured in ms, the sampling could have been to sparse, they didnt mention the DMM accuracy or how it was logged at what sample rate)

gave too much weight to the starting baseline voltage (at least for enthusists like many of us, since we have few qualms about adjusting the baseline, though in some of the supplies that would void the warranty so its a bit of a wash)

they didnt make any attempt to determine the AC Ripple (employing an oscilliscope)

what the review really reveals is by implication rather than measurement
the Vantec's derating curve for temperture was enough to kill it in the load and temperature test, it was unable to work reliably and was likely overloaded for that temperature
(those are likely Topower PW series supplies)

the Ultra-X actually survived the 60VAC brownout which is a suprise to me
but had poor load regulation all the way down the line

the OCZ Powerstream got rated where it did for no real quantifiable reason that I could tell, but solely on features and a high baseline that would have been easily adjusted via the external pots

The Cooler Master seems to be a supply I need to read up a bit more on, it did pretty good and seems to have excellent efficiency

the PCP&C lost its top spot for trivial reasons in my opinion, reminds me of Tom's Hardware review where it came in second to the Antec True Power 550 based solely on its efficency, and they couldnt even test the capacity of the 500 watt supplies :p
The +12V rail didnt even blip during the brownout being rocksteady at 12.08 throughout

Its nice to see an effort at extreme testing, but the proceedure didnt really reveal the finer points to justfiy the specific order they chose, it was too heavilly biased towards features instead of power quality

I would say the OCZ was underated (it has good load regulation and AC Ripple) but is an ATX12V v1.3 supply
as where the advantages of the PCP&C (load regulation and AC Ripple)

since this is all from memory and I didnt commit all the specs to memory I'll drop buy tommorow and try to re-read some of the results

all in all indicative but not conclusive
 
Maximum pc should put it like this:
1. Zippy/Emacs 700W
2. Zippy/Emacs 700W
3. Enermax 660W
4. ...
The only complain for zippy700w is $300 price tag :( and + $12 for eps12v to atx adaptor.
which is included in Enermax retail box.
 
aZn_plyR said:
grrrr maximumpc did a round up on psu in thier latest issue and they placed the neopower first, pcp&pc 510 second, and idk wut OCZ powerstream 520 came in, but it got a 7/10 and antec got 10/10 and the 510deluxe got 9/10... so is the neopower stronger than the powerstream because i am really wanting to go for the powerstream but since the neopower got such a good review...i might go with that..?!?!!?


So my question is, which one has the most raw power for overclocking?

OCZ or ANTEC

o yeha and holycrap! I didn't even see teh new ocz modstream... that too!

Had an Antec NeoPower and Upgraded to an Enermax. Neopower has one fan and no exhaust fan = crap. Also it does not have a knob to adjust the one fan = crap. I would not have an Antec Psu if it was free.

Everybody knows Enermax has the most Amps on the 12v rail. Mine never hickups and I have my 3.4 oc'd to 3.6 and also have my 6800 Ultra overclocked to 430/1180.

No NeoPower could handle that no way. An Antec Toilet Paper 550 couldnt handle it. I would not even put a tp550 or a neopower in my rig it just would not be able to hang with my overclock in the long run.

Also Psu's with thermally controlled fans suck I M O. I want cool all the time. My Enermax EG651P-Ve completely kills a NeoPower for the same money and also remains much cooler along with being quiet.
 
Also I have little regard for reviews or ranking from magazines anymore. The majority of the time they say good stuff when they are payed to do so and they put hardware in their "dream" machines that they are payed to.
 
forgot to mention that Enermax was unable to get a sample to them for this roundup
likely they would have wanted to enter the new EG565AX series geared towards SLi
 
>WP< $lipKnot said:
Had an Antec NeoPower and Upgraded to an Enermax. Neopower has one fan and no exhaust fan = crap. Also it does not have a knob to adjust the one fan = crap.
One large fan can move more air than two smaller fans... as for adjustability, maybe your ambient temperature is low enough for keeping internal PSU temperatures well under spec. Your review is completely subjective.
 
>WP< $lipKnot said:
Had an Antec NeoPower and Upgraded to an Enermax. Neopower has one fan and no exhaust fan = crap. Also it does not have a knob to adjust the one fan = crap. I would not have an Antec Psu if it was free.

Everybody knows Enermax has the most Amps on the 12v rail. Mine never hickups and I have my 3.4 oc'd to 3.6 and also have my 6800 Ultra overclocked to 430/1180.

No NeoPower could handle that no way. An Antec Toilet Paper 550 couldnt handle it. I would not even put a tp550 or a neopower in my rig it just would not be able to hang with my overclock in the long run.

Also Psu's with thermally controlled fans suck I M O. I want cool all the time. My Enermax EG651P-Ve completely kills a NeoPower for the same money and also remains much cooler along with being quiet.
The "only one fan" thing is crap. A PSU with two fans won't necessarily keep itself any cooler than a one-fan PSU. Think of it this way. Many 80mm fans can move 30CFM. How many cubic feet do you think a power supply has of air inside it? Let's be generous (knowing there are a lot of electronics in there) and say half a cubic foot. Do the math.

I like my Enermax PSU, but frankly, a single 120mm fan like the one in the Antec is going to be a quieter solution than the Enermax's combo 80/92mm fans, and it will move plenty of air to cool a PSU. Personally I'd rather have this single 120mm solution in my Enermax, to keep noise down.
Different Enermax PSU's have different amps on their rails. There's a lot more to PSU's than your above comments would indicate, and the Antec Neo isn't a bad unit.
 
LoneWolf said:
The "only one fan" thing is crap. A PSU with two fans won't necessarily keep itself any cooler than a one-fan PSU. Think of it this way. Many 80mm fans can move 30CFM. How many cubic feet do you think a power supply has of air inside it? Let's be generous (knowing there are a lot of electronics in there) and say half a cubic foot. Do the math..



its not just the airflow that is important, but the static pressure
a supply with a greater resistance will benefit from a higher static pressure

a few links :p

Air Flow Vs. Pressure Characteristics
Parallel & Series Operation
Stall of Axial Flow Fans

Basic Fan Laws
How to measure Airflow vs Pressure
How to Achieve Low Noise
Accoustic Noise
EMI
Introduction: Forced Convection Cooling
How to select the right fan or blower
Step 1: The Total Cooling Requirements
Step 2: Total System Resistance / System Characteristic Curve
Step 3: System Operating Point
 
Its an EPS12V supply for a dual CPU server or workstation
ATXGES being the designate before the Server System Infrastructure (SSI) compliance group defined the EPS12V standard

EPS12V 6.1.1 12V Power Rail Configuration

There are two types of 12V rail configurations for systems: 'Common plane' and "Split plane' processor power delivery. The 'common plane' system has both processors powered from a single 12V rail (+12V1) from the power supply. The 'split plane' system has both processors powered by seperate 12V rails (+12V1 and +12V2) one dedicated to each processor. The system in both cases, has an additional 12V rail to power the rest of the baseboard +12V loads and dc/dc converters. +12V1, +12V2 and +12V3 should not be connected together on the baseboard to ensure that 240VA protection circuits in the power supply operate properly

Table 6: 12V Rail Summary
........................................................................................................................................................................................
Common Plane System........................................................Split Plane System
+12V1........Processors.........................................................+12V1........Processor 1
+12V2........Baseboard components other than processors.......+12V2........Processor 2
+12V3........Drives and peripherals..........................................+12V3........Baseboards and components other than processors
...........................................................................................+12V4........Drives and peripherals

and will have an 8 pin Auxillary +12V mobo connector (2x4)

isolating rails means that the load regulation is easier to manage and more foolproof
some supplies are up to the task if they have a tight enough load regulation (transient response) to begin with like the PCP&C 510 turbo cools
however PCP&C are soon to release true EPS12V supplies in a 750 and 800 watt capacity as well

the drawback to rail isolation is that its less flexible and you need to calculate the draw on each rail

subsequently to the EPS12V standard being adopted, formfactor.org (which oversees the ATX mobo and PSU spec) adopted the 24 pin main power connector from the EPS12V spec and dictated dual rail +12V in the latest spec ATX12V v2.0 to meet the needs of PCI Express
(there was a revision v2.01 which is the actual latest spec which dropped the -5V rail and increased the +12V outputs even further for a given wattage class)
 
Cpt Twitchy said:
On that particular enermax (EG651) model what is the advantage to having so many 12 volt rails?

If you have as much to power as I do (especially having a 6800 Ultra) a really large amount of amps on the 12v rail keeps my psu from getting hot or really breaking a sweat.
 
Great stuff as always Ice !
Damn I'm ready for the test!
I'm not sure but isn't the effeciency of a PS at higher temps also a desirable factor?
 
the more efficient the less heat to transfer, and the hotter it gets the harder it is to transfer it
(less differential temerature)

efficiency is also variable over the range of capacity, generally top efficiency peaks in the 70% to 80% load range
 
I've heard how big that zippy is but never thought of it to be that large. That picture really serves justice to the actual size of it.
 
Ice Czar said:
its not just the airflow that is important, but the static pressure
a supply with a greater resistance will benefit from a higher static pressure

I know I was oversimplifying. Of course, by what you say, a 120mm fan would generate a higher static pressure than an 80 or 92mm fan....so a single fan PSU would probably generate plenty of static pressure even though not as much as a two-fan PSU working in push/pull right?

I was just annoyed that anyone would call a PSU crap because it was only a one-fan design, which is silly. There's some decent one-fan PSUs out there, and there's a lot of crappy two-fan PSUs, after all a second fan only costs a buck or two more in OEM-land.
 
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