"So, it is all clear here: a power supply with wattage higher than 600-700W is not necessary for a powerful gaming system unless you are into such things as Peltier coolers, etc."

I have a feeling the article should have stopped there, the rest is probably just the useless result of marketroid garbage wasting everybody's time (especially the reviewer's time IMHO).
In the end it's "Your website, your call" but still...

For those interrested in PSUs they could actually have a use for, a French website recently released a roundup of 105 PSU (yes, one hundred and five). Use google translate, Babel Fish or just look at the data if you don't speak french : http://www.matbe.com/articles/lire/342/comparatif-de-105-al mentations/

Actually the real 1KW units have merit for quad core and multi-graphic card apps.

As you'd expect the PC Power and Cooling PSU is lightyears ahead of the pretenders in design, construction, performance and long-term reliability. While not cheap you definitely get what you pay for with the PC Power and Cooling PSUs. I wouldn't waste my money on the pretenders.

Wow, how you could not proclaim the PC Power & Cooling as the best PSU for it's untouchable electrical characteristics is beyond me. Yes, it might be more noisy than others, but it ran cooler and had the best electrical stability of all of them.

The testing methodology is great, I just don't agree with your conclusion. If someone has a system that will truly need a 1K watt PSU, I would wager that the rest of their system would be running relatively hot and would require quite a number of case fans.

Unfortunate that the PCP&C guerrilla marketers have already found this article. Remember the e-thugs you're funding when you buy one of their power supplies! ;)

Thanks again Oleg for a well-written and honest PSU review. Your test-bench and fan readings still outclass those of any other hardware site I've seen.

I have one concern with your article, though: you state that any PSU shown by your tests to reach 80% efficiency at 20% of load "meets 80 Plus requirements." Although that is indeed the benchmark set by 80 Plus, I think your phrasing can be misinterpreted to mean that the PSU is 80 Plus CERTIFIED, which as far as I know is not the case for any of the PSU's touched on in your article. While I don't doubt the accuracy of your test bench, I think you should defer to Ecos Consulting (the group sponsoring the 80 Plus program) and not associate the PSU's with the 80 Plus program unless they have been officially certified. It's possible that Ecos has a particular test bench that is more difficult to pass (115V for example), but also the fees Ecos presumably collects for 80 Plus testing and certification allow them to continue advocacy for power efficiency in other areas.

But I do think it's great that you're aware of the 80 Plus concept and are promoting power efficiency, whether it's for the environment, cost savings, PSU longevity, or engineering principle. ;)

Other readers should just be aware that 80 Plus compliance is easier for high-power PSU's to achieve, because the "80% efficiency at 20% load" requirement occurs at such a high wattage. The standard PC, idling at 100W or less, will use less power with a lower-wattage (say, 300W) 80 Plus PSU simply because the power supply has been tuned for 80% efficiency at 60W power draw.

great!

Hard discs also don't require anywhere near these power levels. After finding I've got a £60/month electric bill, I've bought a power meter so check where all that money is going. My first suspect was my media server.

It's an old Celeron 1.1 GHz machine, 512MB RAM, Radeon 9000 graphics. Not too much power there, but then this is a file server. It's got a 60GB system disc, 320GB 2-disc RAID-0 array, 1.6TB 5-disc RAID-5 array and a 1TB 3-disc RAID-5 array, each array having it's own controller card. 11 HDDs in total.

During the boot sequence, it requires a peak of 230W, and then settles down to 144W in Windows. Running 3DMark 2001 brings the power usage back up to 225W.

After finding all that out, I was a bit annoyed I'd spent £80 on a nice Akasa 650W PSU to replace the 360W one I had!

Follow up to my previous post, a decent electric meter can be found for £15. I'd advise that as a good investment before spending the amount some of these PSUs cost.

An online PSU calculator recommended a 540W PSU for my setup, which was way higher than the real amount.

Oleg, thanks again for the excellent PSU review. More info on output stages/topology would be useful. Definately the most sound PSU testing & analysis on the net. I also have to agree with SWarrior's comments - although not necessarily re: PCP&C. I have been impressed by CM & Enermax PSUs lately - but I'm still an FSP fanatic... ;)

Wow, Cooler Master ads all overs......*cough* reminiscing other advertising driven site, *cough* while end user reviewers saw it differently, make you wonder how independent the review can be......hmmm? I am not a player hater, I am just sayin~

Hi Oleg,

I found your recent review on 1000Watt power supplies very informative and enjoyed reading it. However, I do have some comments regarding over-specifying the wattage on your PSU when compared to the amount you actually need.

Experience has shown me that PSUs start to become stressed above 50% utilisation. This stress is directly related to the amount of heat they generate and voltage stabilities. The more load you put on the PSU, the more the voltages drop and become increasingly unstable.

For example, the PCs I use at home are hand built by myself and I normally opt for performance components, such as the Crucial Ballistix RAM. Typically, this memory runs at a higher voltage in comparison to ‘standard’ memory specifications and you normally need to make specific BIOS adjustments to account for voltages and timings if you want the quoted performance out of it (SPD rarely works for me 100% accurately). I have found that if a system is using say 380watts, and my PSU is only a 450Watt, the 450 will struggle to keep voltages steady and will begin to drop as I make the machine work harder and subsequently put greater demands on the PSU. This in turn has a massive impact in the stability of the system, especially with the more voltage sensitive components such as the high performance memory.

The only way I have resolved these issues is to over spec the PSUs. For example, I would typically fit a 620Watt PSU into a machine drawing 380 Watts in order to guarantee its stability. This of course then allows me to plug in a multitude of USB devices too without any major concerns that I would be overloading the PSU and effecting voltages.

Just my 2 pence – feel free to ignore, but I had 5 minutes at work at the end of the day to waste!

Regards,

Graham Gray

can the 4 other pins be remove and attach it to a 20 pins mobo?

This review rocks! It was incredibly helpful, especially the graphs. The output ripple graphs really say it all. I have come across only a handful of reviews in the last year that are as thorough and informative as this one, and as well founded on hard data and solid test technique. (I'm an engineer with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, and twenty years as a software developer.) But more importantly, this is the ONLY review I could find on the entire internet that covers (almost) all the major +1000W Power Supplies.

Despite what one commenter said, I tend to agree with the reviewers conclusion regarding the PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW. There is no doubt that it is far and away the best unit electrically. But the noise would make it unsuitable for a desktop gaming PC. Also the size… What were they thinking?. Will it fit in any case? Where would I put all those extra cables which can not be removed? Yes, an F-22 Raptor is faster than a Honda civic, but would you drive one to work every day? So the reviewers conclusion that the PCP&C is more suitable to server (and industrial environments) I think is right on the money.

But I have one important question. I would be very anxious to see how the new Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W W0133RU and Antec TPQ-1000 TruePower Quattro would compare in these tests.

I was thinking of buying the Thermaltake because of some other good reviews (which aren’t as scientifically conducted as this one) and would love to see how it would compare to the Cooler Master.

Thanks.

Toppower was very strong power voltage as like the Rock!So very best PSUs.