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A mid-weight PSU from Seasonic, the Platinum 660W

Subject: Cases and Cooling | February 14, 2013 - 05:47 PM |
Tagged: rosewill, PSU, Platinim 660, modular psu, 80plus platinum

If the 1000W Rosewill PSU that Lee just reviewed is more power than your system needs, [H]ard|OCP has a slightly less powerful 660W 80Plus Platinum PSU you could consider that Lee has also looked at.  At $150 it is fairly expensive for a 660W PSU, but a 7 year warranty and a Platinum efficiency rating do not come cheap.  With four 6+2 PCIe connectors and up to 55A on the 12V rail and an unparalleled peak change of 0.01v this will solidly power several GPUs.  [H] was so impressed that they couldn't think of a PSU to contrast against, this unit is miles ahead of the competition when it comes to the purity of the voltages provided.

H_rosewill660.jpg

"Seasonic's new SS-660XP comes to us boasting high end PSU features in what we can consider a smaller wattage package than what we are used to seeing. This PSU has a fully modular design, great efficiency, optional Hybrid fan control allowing fanless, silent, and normal cooling modes. Does Seasonic have another winner?"

Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:

CASES & COOLING

Source: [H]ard|OCP

Win FREE Stuff! Seasonic M12II 850 watt and 750 watt PSU up for grabs!!

Subject: Editorial, Cases and Cooling | February 5, 2013 - 12:55 PM |
Tagged: seasonic, PSU, power supply, m12ii, giveaway, contest

We know that our readers love to win free stuff, and who can blame you?  Building PCs can sometimes be a burden on your wallet and we do our best to help that by showing you the best deals and occasionally having contests like this!

Our good friends at Seasonic wanted to offer up a couple of power supplies for our community and we were obviously excited to facilitate!  Here are the goods you can win:

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Seasonic M12II SS-850AM 850 watt Power Supply ($130 value - Newegg Link)

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Seasonic M12II SS-750AM 750 watt Power Supply ($120 value - Newegg Link)

Seasonic M12II Bronze Series has been the ever-popular power supply series of the semi modular category. Now Seasonic extends the semi-modular series by introducing M12II Bronze 650/750/850 to provide consumers a larger selection in the entry level 80PLUS Bronze certified category.

The M12II Bronze new models have built in a full protection feature including OCP, OPP,OTP, OVP, SCP & UVP and meet worldwide safety and environmental standards. The all-new M12II-650/750/850 units are the new leaders in the 80 PLUS Bronze category and another great addition to the Seasonic Retail power supply family.

If you are looking to build a new PC or upgrade your current system, either of these two power supplies will make a great backbone for all the other components. 

How do you win? 

  1. Visit your favorite PC Perspective pages like our YouTube channel, Facebook page and Twitter account.  You should subscribe, like and follow us, you know...if you want to.  We'd appreciate it!
  2. Also, stop by the Seasonic Facebook page and give it a look - they are always posting contests and giveaways there!!
  3. Leave a comment here on this post telling us what you would be able to do better if your system was powered by one of these power supplies!

We'll pick a winner on Wednesday the 13th of February, so get your entries in NOW!  A big thank you goes out to Seasonic for supporting PC Perspective and for supporting our loyal readers!

Source: Seasonic

Kingwin's new Power Force PSUs arrive

Subject: Cases and Cooling | January 29, 2013 - 01:46 PM |
Tagged: PSU, Kingwin, Power Force 850W, modular psu

Kingwin's $110 Power Force 850W PSU is not as well appointed as other 850W PSUs but is also much lower in price.  With four 6/8 pin PCIe connectors and 8 SATA power connectors some users might feel a bit cramped but with 70A of power on the 12V line it seems that the unit can be useful for many. [H]ard|OCP tested the PSU to see if it is indeed worth the purchase price and were glad to see it pass all their tests, though perhaps not with flying colours.  This is the first Power Force PSU that they have seen, if Kingwin can keep the quality high and the price low they may make some inroads into recognized PSU suppliers.

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"While not a "go to" enthusiast brand, Kingwin has produced some excellent computer desktop power supplies over the last five years and these have usually be great values. Does Kingwin continue the trend with its new Power Force 850W model sporting good efficiency, modular cabling, and reasonable pricing."

Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:

CASES & COOLING

Source: [H]ard|OCP

Seasonic's new G-series PSU is rated gold in more ways than one

Subject: Cases and Cooling | January 14, 2013 - 03:26 PM |
Tagged: PSU, 80 Plus Gold, Seasonic G-Series, G-550

Seasonic's G-550W provides a bit more than just 550W and a 45A 12V line, modular cabling and an 80 PLUS Gold rating are also included in the $85 price tag.  Those features do not in themselves guarantee that this PSU is worth picking up which is why [H]ard|OCP strapped it into their torture chamber to test the quality of power you can expect from the PSU.  The news is good for Seasonic's G Series, once the power was shut off and the testing completed this PSU walked away with an Editor's Choice Gold Award as [H] felt that not only does this PSU deliver everything they expected it to, in some cases it was "fighting above its weight".

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"The Seasonic G Series PSU is here for review in its 550 watt capacity and it looks to be a return to basics for the company with this being basically a "no-frills" unit that has been released without much fanfare. But the basics for Seasonic usually outline what you truly need in a PSU; reliable clean power with a low sound profile."

Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:

CASES & COOLING

Source: [H]ard|OCP

FSP's new Raider series of PSUs

Subject: Cases and Cooling | January 7, 2013 - 04:52 PM |
Tagged: PSU, FSP RAIDER, 750w

FSP has been making PSUs for a long time now, usually providing decent quality components that might not stand out against other companies flagship models but that do a decent job for what they are needed for.  That is repeated in the Raider series as they chose a non-modular design and only four 6+2pin PCIe connectors though it does have an 80 PLUS Bronze rating, both of those choices helped keep the price down as it is currently $80 on NewEgg.  Price is not everything as [H]ard|OCP proved when they put this PSU through their torture tests and watched it provide voltages well out of specifications as well as offering poor support.

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"With single GPU and CPU enthusiast desktop computer systems coming down in power, mid-level power supplies are once again becoming the sweet spot. FSP claims its new RAIDER series PSU is the "best choice in performance." We put its RAIDER 750 watt unit to the test to see if it is the best choice for you."

Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:

CASES & COOLING

Source: [H]ard|OCP

Rosewill Announces 1600W Hercules PSU

Subject: Cases and Cooling | December 3, 2012 - 08:56 PM |
Tagged: rosewill, PSU, power supply, 80 PLUS Silver, 1600w

Rosewill recently took the wraps off of a monster of a power supply that is rated to deliver 1600W of power. The Hercules 1600W PSU is an 80+ Silver design that will provide efficient power for quad CrossFire X or Nvidia SLI multi-GPU setups. It measures 5.9” x 3.4” x 9.5” and should fit within most full ATX cases without issue.

 

Rosewill 1600W PSU.jpg

Other features include sleeved cabling and a 135mm “silent” fan that has an automatically adjusting RPM setting as well as a Turbo button that will spin the fan up to its maximum speed.

Where the PSU really stands out though is in the sheer wattage and number of PCI-E power cables. It features two 12 volt rails at 110A and 50A each. Rosewill has divided the rails such that 12V1 handles all of the PCI-E power connectors (up to 1320W) and the 12V2 rail rated at a maximum of 600W and is used for all the other 12V connections.

Rosewill 1600W.jpg

The included power cables are as follows:

  • 16 x 6+2 pin PCI-E
  • 16 x SATA power
  • 6 x 4 pin molex
  • 2 x 4 pin floppy power
  • 1 x 8 pin EPS
  • 1 x 4+4 pin EPS
  • 1 x 24 pin ATX

Needless to say, it has an impressive number of power cables. You might have a hard time finding enough graphics cards to use even half of the PCI-E power cables, for example. Fortunately, it has a semi-modular design (the ATX and CPU power cables are non-removable) so that you will not have to find enough room to hide all of the excess cables in the 5.25” bays (heh).

 

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The 1600W Hercules power supply is available now with a price of $399 USD. While it will be overkill for most computers, it is impressive nonetheless and would be well suited to powering a rig with dual Powercolor Devil 13 7990 GPUs.

Source: Rosewill

Nine Middle Weight PSUs battle it out

Subject: Cases and Cooling | November 21, 2012 - 04:18 PM |
Tagged: PSU, modular psu, corsair, Chieftek, cooler master, zalman

The 600-700W range is very popular with enthusiasts who either have a pair of fairly powerful GPUs or a single top of the line GPU, as they don't quite need a kilowatt class PSU.  X-bit Labs put together a roundup which features 9 PSUs from Corsair, Chieftek, Cooler Master and Zalman some modular and some with permanently connected wiring.  It was the Corsair TX650 which received the Recommended Buy award though Cooler Master came close to winning as well.  Some of the other models fared poorly thanks to the lack of proper voltage regulation or in one case fan regulation.  Check out the full review here.

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"We would like to talk about nine power supply units from the most popular 600-700 W wattage range, which represent six different series of devices from four manufacturers: Chieftec, Cooler Master, Corsair and Zalman."

Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:

CASES & COOLING

Source: X-bit Labs

Seasonic's new X-1250 provides pure power satisfaction

Subject: Cases and Cooling | November 13, 2012 - 03:11 PM |
Tagged: PSU, kilowatt, seasonic, X-1250, modular psu

Seasonic's new X-1250 PSU can provide 1250W of power, just as the name suggests, with up to 104 amps to the 12V rail which should provide enough power for even the most power hungry GPUs.  Instead of going with a single rail design Seasonic chose to provide 4 rails so you should ensure to know which plugs you are using.  It passed all of [H]ard|OCP's torture tests with flying colours, making it one of the better kilowatt ckas PSUs they have had the pleasure of testing and when you consider the price, with or without the rebate, it is a perfect choice for users building a system with multiple GPUs.

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"Seasonic makes some of the best enthusiast computer power supplies in the world. It has long produced some of the cleanest power producing PSUs along with being some of the quietest on the market. The new fully modular X-1250 sports many enthusiast features and touts gold level efficiency. Is this new X-1250 worthy?"

Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:

CASES & COOLING

Source: [H]ard|OCP

Corsair AXi/AX PSU Refresh: AX860, AX860i, AX760, AX760i

Subject: General Tech, Cases and Cooling | November 6, 2012 - 08:00 AM |
Tagged: PSU, corsair, 80 Plus Platinum PSU

It has not been too long since Lee Garbutt reviewed Corsair’s AX1200i Power Supply. Corsair used that product to introduce their Corsair Link Dashboard to the monitoring of Power Supply performance. Lee was very impressed with the supply and gave it a Gold Award.

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Some of us are not looking to power a microwave inside our PCs. Corsair has thusly brought that feature to lower wattage PSUs with their new AX860i and AX760i. These PSUs achieve 80 PLUS Platinum certification along with the Digital Signal Processor connection to monitor. If you would rather have $30 USD instead of monitoring capabilities: each model number without the i contains the same 80 PLUS Platinum certification just without the monitoring capabilities. As an added bonus the Corsair power supplies should be very silent. The 860W power supply will shut down its fan to 0 RPM until it reaches a 60% load while the 760W will operate without fans until a 70% load.

These PSUs will be available in November and are priced: $249.99 USD for the AX860i vs. $219.99 USD for the AX860. The AX760i will be available for $229.99 USD vs. $199.99 for the AX760. Again, the i denotes the ability to be monitored by Corsair’s Link Dashboard software.

Press blast after the break!

Source: Corsair

The second coming of the AX1200, now with software controls

Subject: Cases and Cooling | October 24, 2012 - 05:11 PM |
Tagged: PSU, modular psu, kilowatt, Digital Power Supply, Corsair Link, corsair, ax1200i, 80 Plus Platinum

Corsair's new AX1200i PSU is 80 Plus Platinum rated and sports Link monitoring and control software as you might remember from Lee's review.  On the off chance that you would like a second opinion about the PSU, [H]ard|OCP recently published their own review.  Just like Lee they were impressed with the voltage regulation, efficiency, and DC Output quality though they were less impressed with the noise they saw during their Transient Load Test.  They also questioned the use of the Link tweaking software and while the final verdict was positive in some ways they didn't feel this PSU was as true successor to the stellar AX1200 released almost two years ago.

H_Corsair_ax1200i.jpg

"Corsair has a refresh today that talks to its high end line of high power PSUs. The AX1200i comes in touting "platinum" efficiency and "an unprecedented level of monitoring and performance customization." How does the AX1200i perform out-of-the-box and does it actually bring value at its huge price?"

Here are some more Cases & Cooling reviews from around the web:

CASES & COOLING

Source: [H]ard|OCP

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