How big a PSU and why a Corsair one?

[carbon8ed]

I currently have a TT 700w PSU with 4 x 12v rails, each at 18A. My system is a watercooled E6600 with X1950 Pro, 2GB Crucial 10th on a DS4 mobo. The OS is on a RAID10 with 4 seagate 80GB SATA drives plus 2 320GB SATA drives on the 6 Intel headers, I have 2 further 500GB SATA drives on the Gigabyte headers, 1 DVD-RW on the IDE drive and a further SATA DVD-RW on a Sil3114 PCI card.

There are 6 cathodes, a DDC Ultra pump, 9 120mm Nexus case fans and 3 thermal monitors, oh a FDD as well.

I am experiencing problems when adding additional hardrives with I believe a lack of power, it seems one of the (last one?) HDD starts to spin up and then stops causing machine wide failure to launch unless I turn everything off wait a few seconds and then start up. The CPU is O/C but running at low voltage.

I have been looking around and the suggestions are that I have too much draw on the 12v rails. I want a better PSU but there are soo many. I have looked at all the Corsair PSU stickies and found them very helpful. The 620 Corsair has 10 molex and 7 SATA connectors whuch suggests that it will handle lots of peripherals........BUT

12v RAIL on the Corsair is 50A, combined 12v rail on my 700w PSU is 54A. info suggests that Corsair use better (105C)caps (but the TT 750w does as well). i'm looking also at 700, 800 and 1000w PSUs from other manufacturers.

They are all powerful, but how will I know which PSU will successfully run my rig plus around 10 or 12 Hard drives?

I can't read across specs from the TT site to the Corsair site because the various specs are expressed a little differently. JohnnyGuru's review for the Corsair is very good and gives some good clear info though.

So would the Corsair 620w be better for my rig than my current 700w?, mine has 4 12v rails, the Corsair only 3, mine is 54A across the 12v, Corsair is only 50?, mines has 6 SATA and 8 moles, corsair has 7 SATA and 10 molex.

Must be down to internals, but my questions are:

Would the 620w be enough for my rig
Why should the 620 Corsair out-perform higher wattage but expensive PSU's
If others are making ever increasing powerful PSU's, why has Corsair stopped at 620w? - Tagan are at 1100w I believe.

I know a lot of PSU advertising is down to PR (as highlighted by the legit review), but I'm hoping for some real understanding of PSU's. Can they be so different and which will work with my rig? I can't afford a £200 PSU atm, but also want to avoid frequent upgrades to run my rig.


Thanks in advance.

[dave87]

620w will be fine for your setup, even if you were to add a 8800GTX to the mix.

Why Corsair? Because they are made by Seasonic, but have slightly higher output, and are slightly less expensive. Winner all round

[carbon8ed]

Thanks for the super speedy reply and I confess the Corsair might be a good choice, but why?

"620w will be fine for your setup, even if you were to add a 8800GTX to the mix" - I already have 700w so wattage ain't the answer

"Why Corsair? Because they are made by Seasonic, but have slightly higher output, and are slightly less expensive. Winner all round" OK so what makes the Seasonic 620w better for my rig than my TT700w or say a Tagan 850w?

For my main rig I started with dual socket A in an Iwill MPX2 powerd by a 550w Q-Tec (no laughing please), I've gone for Superflower, Tagan, Hiper, Akasa - each time increasing power and cost and every time I asked about the propsective PSU, I got the same replies:

Yeah 550w will be fine or 580w will be fine or 700w will be fine - but they ain't?

Not having a go, just want a little more meat on the bones of the 'go for the corsair'. TIA

[dave87]

Theres a difference between a good 600w PSU, and a QTec 600w. One will provide consistent, stable power, the other will not.

The problem you describe may be due to lack of power, but that will be due to your current PSU being not as good as the sticker suggests. Seasonic (and therefore Corsair, and the Antec NeoHE) use top quality internals, which means less ripple in the voltage, and greater overall stability (and less potential to damage components).

With your choices of PSU, only Tagan sticks out as being a really good PSU, and even they are having build quality issues (Clunk would be the man to ask on that front). Hiper used to be alright, and Akasa I've never used so can't comment, but the Seasonic PSUs are really in a league of their own.

Why do I say 620w will be enough? Look at a few members with higher powered rigs than yourself on this forum, and see what PSU they use. Chances are, the majority will be in the 6-700w range, with quite a few being Corsair/Seasonics.

[carbon8ed]

Thanks aghain dave87, the fog is lifting. Although my rig isn't that special in terms of CPU etc, the problems seems to stem from the 10 hard drives in there. My current PSU has a free PCI-E connector, but all the molex and SATA connectors are used and some even doubled up. One thing I found on the various sites is that the Corsair is able to offload some more power from one rail toanother, I'm not sure whether the TT700 can as well.

Stable and ripple free power makes sense as far as a 'good' performer go and in my other rigs all the the other PSU's I've mentioned run fine - in fairness they alol ran fine with the main rig until I went mad with the hard drives. Another thing forthe Corsair is that the 12v rails provide a total of 600w or 97% of the total wattage which would be beneficial and necessary for the HDD - couldn't find out about the TT700 although the blurb on the web site suggests it'll pump 648w through its 12v rails.

Cheers again and I'll hope there maybe something from the yellowbeard as to why the Corsair will cope with the 10HDD +

Cheers

[dave87]

Hard drives use at most 6-10w - so even with 10w each, they use 100w tops. That is a vastly overestimated peak reading, so they are unlikely to use anywhere near that much, but for the purposes of calculation, they show that a 600w PSU will be more than enough.

[Yellowbeard]

Hard drives use at most 6-10w - so even with 10w each, they use 100w tops. That is a vastly overestimated peak reading, so they are unlikely to use anywhere near that much, but for the purposes of calculation, they show that a 600w PSU will be more than enough.

Good info Dave, thanks for helping here.

Carbon8ed, what specific TT PSU do you have?

[chuckskull]

Thermaltake PSU's have very good specs but rarely deliver. I have a small pile of half dead ones as testament to that. I'm using a seasonic 700w right now which is in essence the bigger brother to the HX620. Both are widely regarded as very good PSU's. I wouldn't have any problem recommending either to anyone.

Also http://www.jonnyguru.com/ by far the best PSU review site on the net.

[carbon8ed]

FAO dave87 thanks again m8, useful stuff, the nexus fans aren't that hungry, nor should the cathodes as they are off, the pump is 18w and the temp sensors will be minimal.


FAO Yellowbeard, my model is the W0106RE Toughpower 700w, the 14cm cooling fan is very good. However, when I got home today, the machine seemed to be on, but was in fact dead. It runs SXETI so is on all the time. One cold hard reboot later and I'm typing this while my RAID system is repairing and veryfying itself.

The numbers on the TT700w match up or in part exceed the Corsair, so why do people think the Corsair will hold.

I am learning more about PSU's virtually by the minute and have a much greater appreciation for the complex job they do!. Whilst I have 4 12v rails on my 700w, 1 rail is MB, 1 is SATA, 1 is 2x PCI-E (only used) and the 4th rail has all the molexes and FDD . Now if the PSU cannot move power across the rails to compensate like the Corsair can that might be.

Although I have assumed that it's the last SATA drive that stops the boot up, but thinking about it I am sure that all the RAID drives run of a molex to 4 x SATA adapter as well as all the components.

Short of taking everything down and adding up each thing on each connector (and I couldn't swear what was where or which rail was which), I'm looking for some logical engineering reason why this Corsair at 620w will cope and if such a wattage will do the job, why are other peeps making 1100w ones!!!

Please note I'm not looking to slag any make over another, I just want to try and establish why my rig is problematic.

FAO chuckskull thanks for that I've found the seasonic 700 at scan and it's around £130, only worry and it's a big one is the 60mm fan. I'm running watercooled for as quiet as possible and the only noise at the moment are the hard drives (oh and the nagging family LOL). It has lots (but not enough) SATA connector).

I now know quite a bit about the outsides of PSU's but nowt about the insides and whey say a corsair 620w would perform better than perhaps a Q-Tec 620w or why a corsair 620w would be better for me than my 700w.

I drive diesel cars and know why the engine performs based on my knowledge of the internals - all engines have water pumps and alternators and such, but engines of the same size can be tweaked for more or less power - how is this difference in performance acheived with PSUs?

The use of higher rated caps (105C instead of 85C) I can see and understand should last longer under heavy load in a warm environment, but wont actually make the power output better (or will it).

Sorry if I have rambled - trying to fit this all in with family. Thanks for all help, is the 620 Corsair enough or what about the seasonic 650w (if it has no 60mm fan) and if seasonic makes these why do they make a 620 for Corsair but don't have a 620 of their own?

Cheers and bonus points if all questions can be answered LOL

[chuckskull]

Why does the Corsair outperform TT, basically because it's easier to put a sticker on a PSU saying it can do something then actually make it do that. Another problem with PSU's like the TT is ripple, which is fluctuations in voltage which is bad for stability and the more load you add the more ripple increases as a rule. All it really amounts to is quality, just like everything else. Many companies even lie about the number of rails.

As for the Seasonic M12 the 60mm only spins when needed. I've never seen mine spin up. The M12's are very quiet.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/review_details.php?id=32 and http://www.jonnyguru.com/review_details.php?id=13 If you fancy
some reading.

EDIT: you can also get free shipping from scan once you have 25 posts.

[carbon8ed]

Thanks again chuckskull, I reckon the 60mm fan would be running quite a bit in my rig as it'll be running 100% load all the time, plus the stupid number of hard drives will make demands - though maybe lop sided as I aint running sli

[carbon8ed]

OK chaps bullet bitten and a corsair 620 has been ordered - will let you all know how she does. Hopefully this'll be the saviour and cure all the ills. I have also had a problem with a couple of the machines where the display is lost but everything is still running - the x1950 Pro in the main rig has been commented on the web that this might also be a power issue.

fingers crossed

[dave87]

Sorry, missed this threads when I was browsing yesterday, but seems like you've made a good choice

[Blitzen]

Another problem with PSU's like the TT is ripple

Hit the nail right on the head there.
TT's have 'unclean' power and distribute the power over the different rails very poorly.

The Corsair has INDEPENDANT 12V Rails whereas alot of companies which profess their PSUs have dual 12V rails actually dont make them independent.

The Corsair range is fantastic. I bought one last month for my other rig and its great.

I must say though, if i was going for 10-12 Hdd's and GTX's i would be looking at the Enermax Galaxy.

[chuckskull]

Just a hint on this, when the new PSU arrives don't fit it to the case straight away. If it can't power everything you'll have a lot less trouble returning it if there are no scrapes and scratches from fitting. I doubt it will happen, but still worth 10mins extra hassle if it does.

[Yellowbeard]

That's very helpful, thank you.