X-bit labs

950W Power Supply Units Sneak into Market.

Category: Other

by Anton Shilov

[ 11/26/2004 | 10:13 AM ]

A Japan-based company has started to sell its power supply units with maximum output of up to 950W, which is the world’s highest performance for desktops. As modern central processing units and graphics cards continue to devour more and more power, high-end personal computer’s PSU requirements will continue to increase and such PSUs are likely to gain popularity.

SNE, a Japanese maker of various hardware aimed at enthusiasts and overclockers, recently started to sell its 950W, 900W and 850W power supply units, claiming the world’s record PSUs. The devices, however, can draw peak wattage only in extreme cases. In typical cases the power of the PSUs is 750W, 700W and 650W respectively, which is still among the world’s top power supply units.

PSUs from SNE can power typical ATX as well as EPS12V systems, which means that the devices can be used for both desktop and workstation/server computers. The power supplies are equipped with 5 connectors for Serial ATA, 4 connectors for mini-Molex and 4 connectors for Molex plugs. The top, 950W (model FSRP950LGA), PSU can draw 34A on 3.3V and 5V connectors and from 14A to 18A on various 12V connectors, which is not higher compared to top offerings from companies like Antec. This may mean that the PSUs from SNE are designed for server and workstation platforms that require extreme wattage to feed multiple hard disk drives and microprocessors, rather than ability draw extreme current on high-speed components, such as top graphics cards or latest processors.

High-end system components, such as Advanced Micro Devices’s Athlon 64 FX-55 chip, or Intel’s Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.46GHz chip, require extremely powerful power supplies, as they consume more than 100W of power in peak cases, and also tend to need for very high current of about 80A (in case of AMD Athlon 64 FX-55), which not many contemporary mainboards and power supply units can provide.

Modern graphics cards also consume of about 80W in peak cases, X-bit labs has learnt. Furthermore, NVIDIA Corp. recently said that those who plan to install a couple of GeForce 6800 GT or GeForce 6800 Ultra graphics cards into a single computer to get extreme speed should also acquire 550W – 600W PSUs, as typically high-end graphics sub-systems collaborate with top graphics processors in ultra-expensive PCs.

SNE’s 950W, 900W and 850W power supply units cost about $570, $475 and $427 in Tokyo, Japan, Akiba PC Hotline web-site notes.