High-wattage PSU not needed?

[SnoMunke]

This from CNET...

Turns out it was none of those things. With the cooperation of all involved, we narrowed down the issue to the power supplies. What's actually happening is still under investigation, but the broad view seems to be that, despite the 600-watt PSUs in each system, the power demands of all the parts, most particularly the pair of overclocked 512MB GeForce 7800 GTX 3D cards in each, is too much for the system during the most demanding gaming scenarios. Adding more raw wattage will solve the problem, as Velocity proved with the introduction of its new 1-kilowatt power supply. Falcon Northwest CEO Kelt Reeves said he solved the problem by adding even more hard drives to a comparable system, a solution that, while counterintuitive, indicates a power balancing problem.

Original Article

 

[Painman]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1800759&enterthread=y

 

[alimoalem]

i like the ideas in the original thread....SLI PSUs 😛

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: SnoMunke
... indicates a power balancing problem.

Original Article[/quote]


Let's not gloss over the fact that the systems don't actually need more than 600W. There's no doubt that they're actually using less than 600W. They need better PSUs, not bigger PSUs.

Then again, this was also mentioned in the old thread.

Originally posted by: Matthias99
As hinted at in the article, it's probably a power balancing issue -- the way the systems were configured was putting too much load on one rail of the PSU.

 

[Goi]

Those were Silverstone and Enermax PSUs, which are generally regarded to be good. I would've expected them to work.

 

[Susquehannock]

> " They need better PSUs, not bigger PSUs. " <

So true!!
As you may know, PSU efficiency drops with increase in temperature. And since many PSU are rated at room temp (25c)
it's easy to see how some 550w units drop below 200w when they reach actual operating temp.

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: Goi
Those were Silverstone and Enermax PSUs, which are generally regarded to be good. I would've expected them to work.

they wouldve worked if the load was properly balanced.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Dual PSUs FTW. Now I just have to do a quick mod suggested over at 2cpu, and have the primary switch turn on both PSUs. Just need to mod the green wires and connect the grounds... 🙂