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When will we have enough Wattage?
Author: Richard SwinburnePublished: 7th June 2007
I'll take two, please. And what's that about a personal power station?
Inquiring about the potential hazard of overpowering the socket, the poor lass had to check the manual for which only the rated power usage for the 1500W was listed. After flicking through the pages we found it can suck down 120Amps of power, so a 2000W should require nothing short of a 160A!
Unfortunately on finding out this information and seeing my jaw hit the floor, she inquired, "Is that a lot?". I tried to put it down to the language barrier but it's still very worrying that Thermaltake seems unaware of the consequences of such a large PSU on a home user's power grid, let alone the cost of running it.
Silverstone had a new 1200W unit to offer, and after chatting to a couple of the guys there the ethos seems to be quietness, even if it's at the expense of a leaving it a little hotter because it's "generally a bit colder in Europe". Thankfully us cold blooded Europeans don't require heated houses either.
Despite this, they assured me that it's far from being too hot, and should work very efficiently. The PSU uses a large fan with a longer than standard chassis, although it's still not quite as big as the Enermax Galaxy.
Finally we dropped by BeQuiet, German PSU manufacturer, who was also demonstrating its new 1000W DarkPower Pro. The PSU is modular and has been compacted into a standard sized PSU case, but uses a revised large 13.5cm fan, with a slower 1800RPM speed to keep it cool, yet still quiet. BeQuiet told bit-tech that it rated the unit at 87% efficiency (which is optimistic of any PSU in our opinion) and are obtaining 80PLUS certification which tests for at least 80% efficiency from 20-100% load.
In addition, the modular PSU has coloured connectors to differentiate between PCI-Express, Molex and 8-pin power plugs. There are two 6+2-pin cables and two 6pin cables provided making it suitable for ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT CrossFire, and they are also ferrite shielded to provide additionally clean power lines.
Finally, there are some super long 105cm cables supplied with 90 degree connectors, which should be suitable for even the largest cases. While this may seem excessive, a 1000W supply should allow you to have a dozen hard drives and a handful of optical drives amongst plenty of other high power hardware, so it's expected a large case is necessary.
Is 1000W too much or is 2000W not enough? Let us know your super powers in the forums.
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Comments (36)
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The saddest thing about it is the huge number of pathetic fools out there who'll buy these wasteful PSUs just because it's got a bigger number and an nVidia SLI sticker on it.
Who cares about electricity bills, safety, efficiency or the environment when our e-penises are in such dire need of extension, eh?
What will come next? will it be standard for cases to have two powersupplys? One for the GPU's and the other for the rest of the system?
I think the necessity for a huge powersupply is exaggerated, and AMD and nVidia aren't so much at fault as the PSU manufacturers and the fanboys who'll rush out and buy the PSU with the highest wattage as soon as it comes out, whether they need it or not.
The companies wouldn't produce such ridiculous PSUs if they didn't think the morons...I mean..market existed.
Unless the thing is pulling something like 10% efficiency
On the 240V side, all the GPO circuits in my house are rated for 16A and most sockets are rated to 10A, so forget about 120 or anything nearly that huge. 10A x 240V is 2400W, which is why you see that number on a lot of heaters, microwaves and such. It's the most you can pull through a standard wall socket. At 100% efficiency (not gonna happen) a 2000W PSU running at full load would draw 8.33A from the socket.
roffles :D
I'll suggest that TT should release a back-to-the-future edn to them and see what they say.
When the lass asked if I wanted to look at their cases, I was desperately trying not to be rude, but I had to tell her the general opinion was that no one liked them Tbh, the main reason I visit the TT booth is that the HAB density is so huge.
HAB = hot asian babe. ;)
H.B.
Evan
Just for reference here's a 1,5 kW power from few years back and a normal-sized ATX-power. http://jipa.blondie89.org/misc/atx_p.jpg The watts are really becoming smaller :)
I'll wait for the first generation of gfx cards sucking LESS power than the previous before I'll ever again upgrade.
Seriously... 1000W or 2000W; most houses have ±3500W per group, and 3-6 groups in total. That would mean that if you want to play it safe, you should have one free group júst for your PC. That's ridiculous. The fact that the PC-world (with the exception of CPU's i think) still hasn't gotten it through their thick skulls to really think about the total use of their hardware proves that they don't care. They want more power and more speed, and being a bit energy-efficient can't stand between those 2.
no system requires more than 700W right now,if that. 2KW is only a maximum not what it actually draws
what is the efficiency of this PSU when it is only running at Max 35% load
oh in regards to connecting it up at home
http://www.amazon.com/Revlon-RV484-1875-Watt-Hair-Dryer/dp/B000065DJY
look at kettles, straighteners etc
things like this have existed for ages
i am voting with my wallet.
generally less than if it was running at 80% load
and how many house fires have there been due to these products?
Just a curious question, but how much power does two 8800GTX's draw? I have an 850W PSU at home, and if i have to upgrade my PSU again just to SLi my machine, i'll be pissed. (i'll have to mod the case first just to fit the buggers in, but that another story :P)
And indeed things with larger fuses are always more likely to cause fire than the ones with small fuses... That thing can cause so much heat without popping the fuse it doesn't make sense.
Power (Watts) = Potential Difference (Volts) x Current (Amps)
P = V x A
A = P / V
A = 2000 watts / 230 volts (standard for UK sockets)
A = 8.7amps.
Where the hell does the 160 come from?? My electric kettle puts out 2000W of power and I can assure you that it draws no more than 13 amps (the standard fuse in a plug) at the max from a 230 volt socket. If that power supply really did draw 160 amps it would not only blow the fuse in the plug on it's power lead, it'd probably also trip the breaker for the whole house.
So, what? I guess I'm just missing something here?
(and on another note - anyone who uses a tumble drier, electric kettle, electic water boiler (worst of all), etc etc really really doesn't need to worry about how much power their PC draws in comparison)
Aha. That makes a lot more sense :)
I knew I had to be missing something simple....
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=418&type=expert&pid=5
pulled from extreme.outervision
System Type: Single Processor
Motherboard: High End - Desktop
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2400 MHz Kentsfield
CPU Utilization (TDP): 85% TDP
RAM: 2 Sticks DDR2 SDRAM
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX
Video Type: SLI
SATA HDD: 2 HDDs
DVD-RW/DVD+RW Drive: 2 Drives
PCI IDE Card: Yes
Fans
Regular: 2 Fans 120mm;
Keyboard and mouse: Yes
System Load: 100 %
Recommended Wattage: 534 Watts
you do raise a fair point with the fire issue tho butthat is mostly caused by faulty wiring besides those product are designed to create heat where as the psu it is only a by product so cannot really be compared
even if the US or any other place that uses 100-120v power grid you find it darn hard to use that much power in an PSU any way As the load is only there when its been used not just been pluged in will not use 2KW
that link is so cool its powering an AMP and an speakers useing 1.2KW of power an Very high end gameing PC probly push at most 600w in use
I wonder how long the psu designers at Thermaltake will discover that in my native country alongside the 220V ac lines we have the 380V ac lines that are used for high power electric motors and design a psu that uses these lines.
Word on the show floor was that the graphics guys with their ultra complicated gpus top out at just 40% efficiency, the rest is pissed away as heat. So if you up that to 70% with a LOT of R&D (yet no return) then you'll only have a fraction of the heat output.
The PSUs may only draw the current needed, but they also don't work effectively until at least about 50% load. It's important to match a PSU to the system.
That's what I've been crying about since day 1 and no-one listens to me!
This is absolutely idiotic.
Who needs ice caps anyways. Let's do what we can to rid all that terrible cold!
...sigh