So with my upcoming upgrade to Sandy Bridge/ Ivy Bridge I had thought to replace my Thermaltake Toughpower QFan 650W with a more powerful 850W+ power supply to ensure stability with multiple graphics cards, hard drives, SSD, and overclocking. I found the Enermax Platimax EPM850EWT 850W and thought it would meet my needs nicely, but it has come to my attention that it is the most expensive power supply under 900W out there at $250... so, recommend me an alternative? Must be modular. System Specs: P8P67 Pro i7-2600K to whatever it will hit stably with a Tt Frio cooler, hoping for 4.8-4.9GHz 16GB (4x4GB) Corsair Dominator 1866MHz 2x GTX 560 Ti 448 Core up to 5 7200RPM Hard Drives 2x Corsair Force Series 3 or Force GT (might upgrade later to a RAID card and up to 10 drives) 1xBD-ROM 1xBD-RE Thanks in advanced.
Pretty overwhelming for the Corsair, and I can see why. Any thoughts on if I should bump up from the 850W to a 1kW? I'm worried that if I start to push this with OC on graphics as well as processor I might eke over 800W, which is a bit close to 850W for my liking, a good 100W buffer is appreciated. Anyone with a similar setup know what sort of power they're pulling?
There's always the CoolerMaster Silent Pro M1000, weirdly their normal bronze range of Silent pro M PSUs gets better reviews than their 'gold' range. If you want to spend a bit more the BeQuiet! Dark Power range is also very good.
I`ve seen reviews where the AX 850 has been drawing 1000W with zero stabilty problems in many tests. Also at 20% load or less the fan doesn`t spin up meaning its silent during light use, i.e. internet browsing. Definately recommend.
Well it depends. You listed 2 x 560s in op which, if you clock like mad both gpus and cpu an 850 will be fine. 2 x 580, 6xx or 7xxx equivalent with big overclocks? A bigger PSU would be sensible. I bought the AX850 for 2 top end GPUs and a clocked SB/IB but I'm not so interested in clocking the GPUs much, if at all. Edit: saying all that, you listed the 448 versions and a possible 10 HDD strong raid array an 2 x SSD...
I, along with several others on this forum, swear by Enermax PSU's. If you want the best, then they're it. It's why I have my Revolution. Just remember, the Platinum it made to a spec that doesn't exist yet... 90+% efficiency...
I will never be able to afford dual $400-500 cards. Dual $300 cards is about as far as the budget can stretch, either the 560 Ti 448 Core or their next gen replacement, depending on how long I wait/ if I wait for Ivy Bridge. Also, I will do up to a 5 disk hard drive RAID, not likely to go any higher. If I go with the 10 disk RAID I was mentioning, it'll be 10 SSD. Most of my storage is on my network on a trio of servers. I swear by Enermax too, to be honest. Part of why they were my first choice. I have been using Thermaltake for the past 3-4 years or so, but Enermax has still been my first choice. I'm just not sure it's worth an extra 25% ($50) for the Enermax when real world gains will likely be pretty minimal... thoughts? I've got about a max of 3in of room from my Toughpower 650W Qfan to where the wires would be right up against my BD-ROM in my Ultra Aluminus case, but that said, if I do go with a 10 SSD RAID down the line, my hard drives would have to go in a drive cage up in the 5.25in bays and they tend to be longer than optical drives.
THIS THIS THIS, 6 BILLION TIMES Over, If I have to convince you then take this is an example, a certain other reviewer TTL and the company that he works for (who shall not be named) tested the 1350W MaxRevo Unit this one to be precise http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1350...plus-gold-sli-crossfire-eps-12v-quiet-fan-atx They test the stability of the 12v rails and found that the unit could pull 1700w! and remain within ATX spec. it even went to 1900W! and then when they pushed it 2000W and all it did quite simply was shut itself down, five minutes later after reseting the power supply tester, turned it all back on again and it was fine. Yes I know the cable's aren't particularly attractive, but if you really don't like them think of it as a challenge and braid them, that's what I've done with 3 of my Enermax units , or if you a bit wary of braiding, just purchase some extenders. All I would say in conclusion then is the Corsair units are great, this however is better.
Hmm... well... huh... For a moment there I was convinced to go with the Corsair... but maybe not anymore. Seriously looking at the Platimax 850W and 1000W now, debating between to the two. I was wondering if there is a lower spec Enermax (80+ Gold/ Silver) but the Revo87+ isn't much cheaper... that said, the MaxRevo 1350W is only $10 more than that, and the Platimax 1200W only a bit more than that... so, currently looking at, for my system: Corsair Pro AX850 at $190 Enermax Platimax 850W at $250 Corsair Pro AX1200 at $280 Enermax Platimax 1000W at $290 (I am currently leaning towards this PSU) Enermax MaxRevo 1350W at $300 Enermax Platimax 1200W at $330
Your not going wrong with any of them... If you think you will need the 1KW (or more going by what trash said) then go for it... otherwise save the $100 and grab the AX
I'd also look at the Seasonic Platinum 1000 which is $260 from here The only negative thing I could say about this is that when it comes to sleeving they don't follow the ATX convention for pinouts at the PSU end. After saying that the only PSUs that do that are some of the Silverstone Strider series.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5464/seasonic-platinum-series-860w Got a review of seasonic platinum 860w at anandtech at the moment.
Add Seasonic Platinum to your list and you have pretty much covered the best power supplies available.