Just bought a PCP&C Turbo-Cool 1KW - Return for PCP&C Silencer 750 instead?

[CZroe]

I'm running 13 hard drives in on CMStacker (original model). It supports 2 PSUs, but I'd rather not do that unless I have to for efficiency reasons. The additional power loss from dual PSU conversions would be double so the savings from a single higher-wattage PSU would easily pay the cost of a Turbo-Cool 850 SSI/1KW over some time. But do I need a Turbo-Cool? Just when the 1KW was released, I was talking to a PCP&C engineer about ordering the 850 model or the 1KW for "a system with 14 drives." Surprisingly, he assured me that even the 850 SSI was overkill.

I looked around and the price is almost the same for both the 850SSI and 1KW. I have Fry's credit and they only carried the 1KW model, so I headed there for it. I was bummed that they charged $50 more for it in store than online, but what really upset me was seeing a 750w PCP&C Silencer PSU there for $199.99. That was the first I had heard of it.

Based purely on assumptions, I figured that if a Turbo-Cool 850 SSI is overkill, then a similar 750w PSU would be adequate. I was strongly tempted to get this rather than pay 2.5 times as much for the 1KW, but having done no research, I convinced myself to leave with the 1KW and make the trek back for an exchange based on your suggestion.

I don't have time to do anything with it tonight (classwork to do), so I can't research it either. If you guys suggest a return I'd have to do it first thing following classes in the morning so I could get whichever one implemented tomorrow. Also, efficiency is a factor for me. I noticed that the Silencer box stated "83% efficiency with .99PFC" while the 1KW just stated "Highly efficient with .99PFC" or something (as if the efficiency statistic was downplayed in comparison). Both are brand-new stock, so the difference isn't just a new way to label them. Frys has not had any in-stock for a long while.

Storage Review doesn't tell me the 7k500 PATA drive's power draw stats, but I can assume that they are close to the SATA version's. That said, I need to power:
Six Hitachi 7k500 drives and their Promise SuperTrak SX6000 RAID 5 card + 128MB SDRAM DIMM.
Six WD1200JB drives (three silver from 2003, three black from 2004) and their SuperTrak SX6000 card.
One WD1200JB boot drive (or possibly a Hitachi 7k400 soon).
One 12x SATA Plextor DVD+/-R (single-layer).
Gigabit-native nForce2 motherboard plus Barton core CPU.
1GB PC3200 DDR system memory.
Toss-in 32MB GeForce-2 GTS-V AGP card

 

[zainali]

750 should be more than enough.

1k is for something like quad sli.

 

[Snakexor]

750 is overkill for that! if they have a s12 or m12 600 in stock, grab that and be on your way!

 

[akshayt]

13 hdda is hell of a lot

 

[Varun]

13 Hard Drives x 15W = 195W (most seek around 10-12W so this is a nice cushion)
CPU = 100W (most are no where near this)
GPU x 1 = 75W (same as CPUs- most are not this high)
MB = 25W
Misc = 30W

Total = 425W max with a lot of cushion. To add some more cushion you should go with a 500-550, or 600 if you are really worried.

The 750 would be PLENTY for this system.

 

[CZroe]

Thanks guys... Screw sleep. I think I'll do a little research too. 🙂 I imagine that there will be a hell of a lot of extra power draw during the initial spin-up because I have no staggered-startup features like the SATA versions.

"12V Maximum Power Dissipation- The maximum power drawn on the 12 volt rail by a drive on powerup, typically during platter assembly spinup. This figure is relevant when a system features an array of several drives. Though most controllers feature logic that can stagger the spin-up of individual drives, peak power dissipation may nonetheless be of concern in very large arrays or in cases where a staggered start is not feasible."

Hitachi's spec sheets peg the 7k500 drives at 24w when spinning up. That's 312 watts of 12v alone (though SR tests them at 15.2w, Seagate's 750GB draws 30w!). However, with this many, even the 5v wattage is significant... 71.5w. The SX6000 RAID cards have built in CPUs and memory controllers, on board SDRAM DIMMs (more wattage than DDR IIRC) as well as TWELVE complete PATA/EIDE controller chips (six per card, not three). I'm sure that's a lot there too. I can't even venture a guess on that. The video card is an older, larger process technology (.22?) and is therefore pretty power-hungry. Remember, a GF2 GTS was a top-of-the-line video card at one point, so the power requirements in comparison to the value cards of today are not appropriate.

A Turbo-Cool 1KW has only 36A on the +12v rail for drives (66A total on all). The drive's 312w equates to 26A alone. That's a long way towards the maximum considering that it's still before factoring in any other hardware. The Silencer 750 doesn't even list the amps/wattage per rail (just 60A total on +12v). 🙁

Originally posted by: Snakexor
750 is overkill for that! if they have a s12 or m12 600 in stock, grab that and be on your way!

I dunno if they carry those. 🙁 Kinda doubt it (never noticed).

Originally posted by: Varun
13 Hard Drives x 15W = 195W (most seek around 10-12W so this is a nice cushion)
CPU = 100W (most are no where near this)
GPU x 1 = 75W (same as CPUs- most are not this high)
MB = 25W
Misc = 30W

Total = 425W max with a lot of cushion. To add some more cushion you should go with a 500-550, or 600 if you are really worried.

The 750 would be PLENTY for this system.

Thanks. But what if I consider over-specing for PSU efficiency? PCP&C insists that all PSUs run more efficiently the more under-loaded they are. Even if the Silencer 750 is perfect, my power bill may be much better over the course of the 1KW's 2-year longer warranty. In case it isn't obvious, I'm really trying to justify keeping it. 😉 Is there any way to actually calculate something like power savings?

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: Varun
13 Hard Drives x 15W = 195W (most seek around 10-12W so this is a nice cushion)
CPU = 100W (most are no where near this)
GPU x 1 = 75W (same as CPUs- most are not this high)
MB = 25W
Misc = 30W

Total = 425W max with a lot of cushion. To add some more cushion you should go with a 500-550, or 600 if you are really worried.

The 750 would be PLENTY for this system.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2835&p=12

Since when do most modern GPU's take 75watts? Not saying his is modern, but by your wording it sounds like hardly any consume that much power...which quite a lot do...some double.

 

[smthmlk]

i had your video card (the gf2 gts 32MB) and it is not power hungry like todays mid to high end cards are--not even close. Seriously. Good luck with your PSU purchase, whatever it may be.

 

[CZroe]

Originally posted by: smthmlk
i had your video card (the gf2 gts 32MB) and it is not power hungry like todays mid to high end cards are--not even close. Seriously. Good luck with your PSU purchase, whatever it may be.

Yeah, I had no clue how much it used, but I know it wasn't efficient in the least. 😉 Nothing on those larger processes was. Of course, they weren't pushing the limits of cooling technology and spilling over into multiple slots back then either so they were a few steps back in where they were willing to go with power consumption.

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: CZroe
Thanks. But what if I consider over-specing for PSU efficiency? PCP&C insists that all PSUs run more efficiently the more under-loaded they are. Even if the Silencer 750 is perfect, my power bill may be much better over the course of the 1KW's 2-year longer warranty. In case it isn't obvious, I'm really trying to justify keeping it. 😉 Is there any way to actually calculate something like power savings?

They're right, in the middle of the power curve (20-80%) you'll be hitting 85% with a good PSU, while they tend to drop to 82% at full load.

Since the silencer is $XXX less than the 1KW monster you're really, really not going to save money by getting maybe 2-3% more efficiency (after all once the peak load is gone you're not going to be stretching the PSU with either).

Do your drives support staggered spinup?

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: bobthelost
Do your drives support staggered spinup?

Originally posted by: CZroe
I imagine that there will be a hell of a lot of extra power draw during the initial spin-up because I have no staggered-startup features like the SATA versions.

 

[smthmlk]

Originally posted by: CZroe

Originally posted by: smthmlk
i had your video card (the gf2 gts 32MB) and it is not power hungry like todays mid to high end cards are--not even close. Seriously. Good luck with your PSU purchase, whatever it may be.

Yeah, I had no clue how much it used, but I know it wasn't efficient in the least. 😉 Nothing on those larger processes was. Of course, they weren't pushing the limits of cooling technology and spilling over into multiple slots back then either so they were a few steps back in where they were willing to go with power consumption.

The gf2 cards were also relying solely on the power provided by the AGP port, if that gives you any indication of the maximum power one of them could possibly draw.

 

[Varun]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: Varun
13 Hard Drives x 15W = 195W (most seek around 10-12W so this is a nice cushion)
CPU = 100W (most are no where near this)
GPU x 1 = 75W (same as CPUs- most are not this high)
MB = 25W
Misc = 30W

Total = 425W max with a lot of cushion. To add some more cushion you should go with a 500-550, or 600 if you are really worried.

The 750 would be PLENTY for this system.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2835&p=12

Since when do most modern GPU's take 75watts? Not saying his is modern, but by your wording it sounds like hardly any consume that much power...which quite a lot do...some double.

From your link:
We test power by measuring the total wattage of the system with each card installed in two different states

Anandtech has never measured the draw of only the card. From your link a fairly powerful computer was only drawing 171 watts TOTAL under load. Most video cards do not draw as much power as people think. Some of them are insane - the 7950GX2 is like 140w, the X1950XTX is 125w.

The 7600GT on the other hand is mid 30's.

Only the very top end cards draw much over 75w so I stick by my statement. Perhaps you should read your cited sources before you use them.

 

[Pabster]

Obviously the answer depends on your future needs.

Are you going to ... add more drives? upgrade to high-end video (even non-SLI/CF)?

You can't go wrong with the PC P&C 1kW. It's got enough juice to last through SEVERAL upgrade cycles.

 

[CZroe]

Well, I called PCP&C because I've gotten good advice from them in the past. To be cautious, they recommended an Turbo-Cool 850 SSI over the Silencer 750. Because Fry's only carries a Turbo-Cool 1KW which is only slightly more expensive, I guess that's my PSU then. I only wish I could have ordered direct so I could get the right connectors for this (no SLI connectors, less SATA connectors, 14 drive connectors). I feel uncomfortable splitting 8 standard drive connectors to 13 drives. There should be no more than 6A per connector and three connectors per cable so I have to plan this carefully.

Thanks for all the suggestions... I'll probably get that Silencer 750 if I ever upgrade my SLI/Dual Core system to SLI cards that actually use the PCIe power connector (these 7800GTs use normal drive connectors, which is good because the Turbo-Cool 510 in there doesn't have PCIe power connectors). Then I'll know what to do with the 7k400 and 1200JB drives supplanted from the fileserver. 😉

Originally posted by: smthmlk

Originally posted by: CZroe

Originally posted by: smthmlk
i had your video card (the gf2 gts 32MB) and it is not power hungry like todays mid to high end cards are--not even close. Seriously. Good luck with your PSU purchase, whatever it may be.

Yeah, I had no clue how much it used, but I know it wasn't efficient in the least. 😉 Nothing on those larger processes was. Of course, they weren't pushing the limits of cooling technology and spilling over into multiple slots back then either so they were a few steps back in where they were willing to go with power consumption.

The gf2 cards were also relying solely on the power provided by the AGP port, if that gives you any indication of the maximum power one of them could possibly draw.

For curiosity's sake, about how much is that? Is it higher for 1.5v AGP than older 3.3v AGP?

Originally posted by: Pabster
Obviously the answer depends on your future needs.

Are you going to ... add more drives? upgrade to high-end video (even non-SLI/CF)?

You can't go wrong with the PC P&C 1kW. It's got enough juice to last through SEVERAL upgrade cycles.

Well, it's a file server so the bottleneck will always be disk/network performance. My brother and I did seriously consider putting our NF4 + A64X2 Dual-Core + 7800GT SLI system in there for the hell/novelty of it, but that would have left us with a P180 pretty much empty and a file server that's always being rebooted for games. 😉

I do plan to transition to all Hitachi 7k500 drives after the next retail deal blows through, but replacing 1200JB drives means limited additional draw. I'll then do software RAID0 on the two RAID5 arrays. To do this, I only need six more.

There really is no room for additional drive bay devices. The only way to add more drives would be to find one of those uncommon 3-in-2 drive bay adapters and remove my boot drive and DVD drive... removing the power/USB/FP Audio drive bay would allow for another 4-in-3 module, but I need a power switch!

As for the video card, I'm sure I'll be throwing it in some poor guy's computer after their onboard video frys or their OEM cards kicks the bucket then moving up to whatever else I have lying around (an unopened MX4000, never-used RMA 9800 Pro All in Wonder, GF6800NU Engineering Sample, etc). I guess that's all the upgrading I'll be doing for a long time.