New PSU ?

[Admiral]

Was thinking about getting a new PSU in the months to come, at some point or another I'll be migrating to a quad core (Penryn based hopefully) and next generation video cards will also be more demanding.

My first take was 1000W Thermaltake or Enermax (currently have an Enermax 600W) but I found a Xilence 1000W at almost half the price. Only recently heard about them and reviews are scarce, close to non-existent. Viper Lair has a review on the 800W version, performance was decent and it was also quiet (130mm thermal controlled fan).
Some other options would be SevenTeam, SilverStone, Seasonic (900W).

Thoughts, other suggestions ?
(thank you)

[az]

Are you SURE your Enermax won't cut it?

[Admiral]

For now, but I'd sure want to be able to overclock the new hardware.

[Mehen]

I think the main reason for getting a PSU with that much power is SLI/xfire.

If you're gonna go overkill, may as well get the 1600W Ultra X3

My honest suggestion though is a seasonic made PSU, either seasonic brand or Corsair. The Corsair HX620W is one of the best reviewed PSUs out there.

Thermaltake makes some really good PSUs too, but they also make a lot of %@!% - so make sure you read a lot of reviews. Silverstone is solid too.

[Taz]

Check out the reviews at JonnyGuru as they are a lot more indepth than most

[Admiral]

I think the main reason for getting a PSU with that much power is SLI/xfire.

If you're gonna go overkill, may as well get the 1600W Ultra X3

My honest suggestion though is a seasonic made PSU, either seasonic brand or Corsair. The Corsair HX620W is one of the best reviewed PSUs out there.

Thermaltake makes some really good PSUs too, but they also make a lot of %@!% - so make sure you read a lot of reviews. Silverstone is solid too.

Somehow I should have know this was going to turn the overkill way...
Part of the reason was that I also wanted to put the Enermax in my brother's system, the old Antec 550 TruePower, once RMAed, is starting to act up again and it's out of warranty.

I can't find any Ultra products here and I wouldn't go that high. Thank you for reminding me about Thermaltake and the info on Seasonic.
I was looking at a long term investment, 1000W was just a round number as overkill as it sounds/looks. The point about dual video card systems is well taken and I'm generally opposed to SLI/XFire setups.
The Sesonic 900W looks appealing as does the 700W model (and it's 2/3 the price). I'll have a look at some other 700-900W products.

[az]

Seasonic do have an excellent reputation; they're strong, reliable and quiet. I think 700 W would be more than enough. Processors and epecially video cards will get more economical in the future rather than draw even more power.

[Admiral]

I failed to include Antec in the equation, was still under the impression they never got past 650W. Taz's link was very useful, the Quattro lineup looks good and it seems they're made by the same OEM (Enhance) as Sesonic's.
And they're not as expensive as they used to be in the past (compared to others), the 850W Quattro is about the same price as the 700W Seasonic (same amp rating on +12V rails) while the 1KW model is 30 Euros more. Thermaltake and Enermax just seem overpriced in comparison.

edit: misread, Enhance builds for SilverStone (all the S brands got me confused).

[Jammrock]

PC Power & Cooling's (now owned by OCZ) Silencer 750 Quad (750 W constant, 850 W 'burst' or max) is probably the most sought after PSU at this time. They can get away with "only" 750 W and still handle dual high end GPUs because it uses what they claim to be a more efficient design. Instead of splitting the +12 V supply into 2 to 4 rails, they have one, huge, 60 A +12 V rail. So they actually end up supplying more of the holy grail +12 V than even the big 1 kW PSUs.

http://www.pcpower.com/products/viewproduct.php?show=S75QB

But if you must have 1 kW: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817703007

72 A on a single +12 V rail. PC Power & cooling logic:

http://www.pcpower.com/technology/myths/#8

Beyond that I'm a big fan of Seasonic. They make great PSUs that are both quiet and efficient.

[UtwigMU]

Seasonic if you can get it locally. Then Fortron, Sparkle,... Then Enermax.

Antec is crap now.

[Mehen]

I think the 700W Seasonic would be a good choice.

[Mehen]

the infamous (around here anyways) hardocp has done a bunch of good PSU reviews in the last few months:

http://hardocp.com/reviews.html?cat=NDUsUG93ZXIgU3VwcGxpZXMgLyBQU1UsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=

[Admiral]

k, Antec is out (got some things mixed up, read edit in previous post).

Leaning towards Seasonic 700W. Thanks for the patience and for beating some sense into me.
There are times I get carried away more than I want to.

[Admiral]

As it turns out the Seasonic might not have 4 separate 12V rails after all. (silentpcreview.com)

I also had a look at the Corsair HX620W and Seasonic 650W S12+ since they're cheaper than the M12 700W and the amp rating is close (M12-56A, S12+ -52A, Corsair-50A) .

[Taz]

I think PSU's are the hardest component to buy these days as a lot of the time the ratings aren't worth the paper they are printed on. Add to that most are made by an other company so you don't really know who's PSU you're actually buying. You need to forget the brand and look at them on a model by model basis as someone's 650W PSU may be great but their 700W could be rubbish.

Enermax have been one of the most consistent performers and I've been really impressed with the 650W Silverstone PSU I've got in my main rig. It's currently powering 2 x Opteron 240's, 2Gb RAM, ATI X1950Pro, 3 x 120Gb HD's, RAID controller, 2 x optical drives, DLT tape drive plus the usual fans etc