Seasonic S-12 Energy+ 650W reviewed

[imported_RedStar]

i am starting to get confused over all these 12 v rails and their limitations...esp with 4 rails on some.

so while i won't use the sli power now...i think i will prolly in the future (esp with rumours about the power dx10 parts will slurp up) .

Nvidia recommends this one (the store i use has this of several recommended)

for highest sli-set up:

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/product/Power/ToughPower/W0106/w0106.asp
(700w)

Would this supply equal seasonic's quality?

perhaps it is a rebranded seasonic..?

 

[Bobthelost]

No, thermal take is pretty poor quality wise.

Don't waste money on a might be, with a C2D and Nvidia non SLI computer you only need a 400W PSU. If you need more power then buy a new PSU with your new graphics card. (Oh and the rumours of power draw are at least partially bullshit. If power draw is that high then you'll just get a given power brick with the graphics cards, no PSU that fits the Intel spec can handle a 300W card without using two rails (that way lies madness)).

 

[Operandi]

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: orangat
RedStar, the problem is that if dual rail psu manufacturers followed the Intel specification to the letter, then the 12V1 which is dedicated to the video card cannot exceed and will be capped off at 18A. So high end cards which consume 9A or more will either be running close to the edge or simply fail.

The workaround for the Silverstone is possible because the manufacturer provided more than 1 rail for the video cards.

That?s not entirely true. PCI-E graphics card draw power from the PCI-E slot as well as the external PCI-E connector. So at least some of the power should be coming from both rails.
Besides I'm fairly certain there are more then a couple of people using the 600 watt S12 for high end Crossfire and SLi configurations.

How does that even make sense?
Where do you think that 12V (from the pci-e slot) comes from? from 12V1 or 12V2? The standard clearly specifies that 12V1 is used for anything OTHER than the cpu which includes the mb, fans, drives and the video cards. _If_ psu manufacturers followed the spec _to_the_letter, 12V1 is capped off at 18A (or up to 20?) which is obviously insufficient for high end sli setups.

If the Seasonic dual rail 600W runs high end sli/xfire, it will be running it right at the edge of its rated spec. I'll leave it up to you as to whether its a good thing or not.

Well maybe it doesn?t work that way but it certainly would make more sense then leaving 18A solely to the CPU when the most it can draw is 8 or 10.

Besides most PSU manufactures bend or break the rules a bit when it comes to the ATX specifications.

 

[orangat]

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: orangat
RedStar, the problem is that if dual rail psu manufacturers followed the Intel specification to the letter, then the 12V1 which is dedicated to the video card cannot exceed and will be capped off at 18A. So high end cards which consume 9A or more will either be running close to the edge or simply fail.

The workaround for the Silverstone is possible because the manufacturer provided more than 1 rail for the video cards.

That?s not entirely true. PCI-E graphics card draw power from the PCI-E slot as well as the external PCI-E connector. So at least some of the power should be coming from both rails.
Besides I'm fairly certain there are more then a couple of people using the 600 watt S12 for high end Crossfire and SLi configurations.

How does that even make sense?
Where do you think that 12V (from the pci-e slot) comes from? from 12V1 or 12V2? The standard clearly specifies that 12V1 is used for anything OTHER than the cpu which includes the mb, fans, drives and the video cards. _If_ psu manufacturers followed the spec _to_the_letter, 12V1 is capped off at 18A (or up to 20?) which is obviously insufficient for high end sli setups.

If the Seasonic dual rail 600W runs high end sli/xfire, it will be running it right at the edge of its rated spec. I'll leave it up to you as to whether its a good thing or not.

Well maybe it doesn?t work that way but it certainly would make more sense then leaving 18A solely to the CPU when the most it can draw is 8 or 10.
Besides most PSU manufactures bend or break the rules a bit when it comes to the ATX specifications.

Maybe? Besides? What are you talking about? Are you still insisting that the 12V lines on the pci-e slot do _not_ share the same rail as the external pci-e connector? If so you are wrong. Read the spec at formfactors.org.

I'd question the veracity of your claim that _most_ psu manufacturers bend the rules wrt 12V rails on pcie slot+connectors. Regardless its beside the point since I specifically mentioned about specs followed to the letter.

 

[Operandi]

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: orangat
RedStar, the problem is that if dual rail psu manufacturers followed the Intel specification to the letter, then the 12V1 which is dedicated to the video card cannot exceed and will be capped off at 18A. So high end cards which consume 9A or more will either be running close to the edge or simply fail.

The workaround for the Silverstone is possible because the manufacturer provided more than 1 rail for the video cards.

That?s not entirely true. PCI-E graphics card draw power from the PCI-E slot as well as the external PCI-E connector. So at least some of the power should be coming from both rails.
Besides I'm fairly certain there are more then a couple of people using the 600 watt S12 for high end Crossfire and SLi configurations.

How does that even make sense?
Where do you think that 12V (from the pci-e slot) comes from? from 12V1 or 12V2? The standard clearly specifies that 12V1 is used for anything OTHER than the cpu which includes the mb, fans, drives and the video cards. _If_ psu manufacturers followed the spec _to_the_letter, 12V1 is capped off at 18A (or up to 20?) which is obviously insufficient for high end sli setups.

If the Seasonic dual rail 600W runs high end sli/xfire, it will be running it right at the edge of its rated spec. I'll leave it up to you as to whether its a good thing or not.

Well maybe it doesn?t work that way but it certainly would make more sense then leaving 18A solely to the CPU when the most it can draw is 8 or 10.
Besides most PSU manufactures bend or break the rules a bit when it comes to the ATX specifications.

Maybe? Besides? What are you talking about? Are you still insisting that the 12V lines on the pci-e slot do _not_ share the same rail as the external pci-e connector? If so you are wrong. Read the spec at formfactors.org.

I'd question the veracity of your claim that _most_ psu manufacturers bend the rules wrt 12V rails on pcie slot+connectors. Regardless its beside the point since I specifically mentioned about specs followed to the letter.

All I'm sayings is that it would make more sense, I'm not insisting on anything.

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

Ignore him Operandi, he fights with everyone and will drag it out to get the last word.

Whoever he/she is can get in a fight in an empty room


...Galvanized

 

[SuperSix]

Originally posted by: GalvanizedYankee
Ignore him Operandi, he fights with everyone and will drag it out to get the last word.

Whoever he/she is can get in a fight in an empty room


...Galvanized

He does love to argue, doesn't he..

 

[orangat]

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: orangat
RedStar, the problem is that if dual rail psu manufacturers followed the Intel specification to the letter, then the 12V1 which is dedicated to the video card cannot exceed and will be capped off at 18A. So high end cards which consume 9A or more will either be running close to the edge or simply fail.

The workaround for the Silverstone is possible because the manufacturer provided more than 1 rail for the video cards.

That?s not entirely true. PCI-E graphics card draw power from the PCI-E slot as well as the external PCI-E connector. So at least some of the power should be coming from both rails.
Besides I'm fairly certain there are more then a couple of people using the 600 watt S12 for high end Crossfire and SLi configurations.

How does that even make sense?
Where do you think that 12V (from the pci-e slot) comes from? from 12V1 or 12V2? The standard clearly specifies that 12V1 is used for anything OTHER than the cpu which includes the mb, fans, drives and the video cards. _If_ psu manufacturers followed the spec _to_the_letter, 12V1 is capped off at 18A (or up to 20?) which is obviously insufficient for high end sli setups.

If the Seasonic dual rail 600W runs high end sli/xfire, it will be running it right at the edge of its rated spec. I'll leave it up to you as to whether its a good thing or not.

Well maybe it doesn?t work that way but it certainly would make more sense then leaving 18A solely to the CPU when the most it can draw is 8 or 10.
Besides most PSU manufactures bend or break the rules a bit when it comes to the ATX specifications.

Maybe? Besides? What are you talking about? Are you still insisting that the 12V lines on the pci-e slot do _not_ share the same rail as the external pci-e connector? If so you are wrong. Read the spec at formfactors.org.

I'd question the veracity of your claim that _most_ psu manufacturers bend the rules wrt 12V rails on pcie slot+connectors. Regardless its beside the point since I specifically mentioned about specs followed to the letter.

All I'm sayings is that it would make more sense, I'm not insisting on anything.

What would make more sense is to put it all on a single rail instead of a dual rail design.

 

[orangat]

Originally posted by: GalvanizedYankee
Ignore him Operandi, he fights with everyone and will drag it out to get the last word.

Whoever he/she is can get in a fight in an empty room
...Galvanized

I never quoted you or disparaged you so why are you creating trouble? Need some attention?

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: orangat
RedStar, the problem is that if dual rail psu manufacturers followed the Intel specification to the letter, then the 12V1 which is dedicated to the video card cannot exceed and will be capped off at 18A. So high end cards which consume 9A or more will either be running close to the edge or simply fail.

The workaround for the Silverstone is possible because the manufacturer provided more than 1 rail for the video cards.

That?s not entirely true. PCI-E graphics card draw power from the PCI-E slot as well as the external PCI-E connector. So at least some of the power should be coming from both rails.
Besides I'm fairly certain there are more then a couple of people using the 600 watt S12 for high end Crossfire and SLi configurations.

How does that even make sense?
Where do you think that 12V (from the pci-e slot) comes from? from 12V1 or 12V2? The standard clearly specifies that 12V1 is used for anything OTHER than the cpu which includes the mb, fans, drives and the video cards. _If_ psu manufacturers followed the spec _to_the_letter, 12V1 is capped off at 18A (or up to 20?) which is obviously insufficient for high end sli setups.

If the Seasonic dual rail 600W runs high end sli/xfire, it will be running it right at the edge of its rated spec. I'll leave it up to you as to whether its a good thing or not.

Well maybe it doesn?t work that way but it certainly would make more sense then leaving 18A solely to the CPU when the most it can draw is 8 or 10.
Besides most PSU manufactures bend or break the rules a bit when it comes to the ATX specifications.

Maybe? Besides? What are you talking about? Are you still insisting that the 12V lines on the pci-e slot do _not_ share the same rail as the external pci-e connector? If so you are wrong. Read the spec at formfactors.org.

I'd question the veracity of your claim that _most_ psu manufacturers bend the rules wrt 12V rails on pcie slot+connectors. Regardless its beside the point since I specifically mentioned about specs followed to the letter.

All I'm sayings is that it would make more sense, I'm not insisting on anything.

What would make more sense is to put it all on a single rail instead of a dual rail design.

Thank Intel for that.

 

[Skott]

I think I'm more confused than when I first asked my question. ::chuckle:: Anyway as for my current build I believe I'm good to go.

 

[Icepick]

Originally posted by: Skott
My S12 600w just came in too so I think I made a good choice. Just kinda confused about these units that have 3 and 4 rails now. I mean I understand why they moved away from single rails just wondering how many rails is enough? The modular units are gaining popularity now too since the newer models arent as bad quality as the early models. XConnect didnt help win people over with their poor offerings in the beginning.

ONE rail is all you need. Think about it. The power that is supplied is all coming from the same power source. It just gets divided into parallel circuits when it's delivered to the components. That's it. The power supply manufacturers all moved to dual rails back in 2004 in response to a new standard that Intel published. That standard was devised to conform to heat and safety practices to limit the amount of current available on each rail to decrease risk of electric shock.

Dividing the power delivery onto two rails gives no performance benefit. If you have a PSU that is rated to deliver 32A on the 12V then rail 1 could have 16 and rail 2 could be rated at 16A. If rail two is only delivering, say 8A to the CPU and rail 1 needs more than 16A for all of the other components + the video card then it will draw the extra current it needs.

I noticed that the power supply manufacturers are introducing three and four rail CPUs. That is a gimmick to draw attention to themselves and to confuse the customer. It allows them to say," HEY n00b! Look at me! I have four rails and my competitor only has two! I are teh l33t!! My competitor = teh SUXXOR!"

 

[Icepick]

Originally posted by: Skott
I think I'm more confused than when I first asked my question. ::chuckle:: Anyway as for my current build I believe I'm good to go.

LOL

 

[imported_RedStar]

i am still confused now also ...

and here is a clarification from another forum:

"MikeC
Site Admin

Joined: 11 Aug 2002
Posts: 6803
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 11:19 am Post subject: Reply with quote
autoboy wrote:
So let me get this straight. The 12V1 rail is dedicated to the cpu for the most part. The 12V2 rail is for the rest of the system. The power supply can supply as much amperage on either rail up to the limit of both rails added together. So if i had a power supply capable of 32 amps on both rails and if i had a P-M that uses only 2 amps on the 12V1 rail then I have 30 amps on the 12V2 rail available which should be enough for 2 graphics cards running 20 amps and motherboard and harddrives for a total of 25 amps on the 12V2 rail leaving me with 5 amps headroom. However, because of the 20 amp maximum per rail the power supply shuts down. How would changing to the molex instead of the PCI-e help this and why would you want to load the 12V2 with more harddrives? Is my thinking wrong here?

Some clarifications --

* It is usually 12V2 that supplies the 2x12V (AUX12V) connector, which feeds the CPU.
* A huge number of so-called multiple independent 12V line PSUs actually have only ONE 12V line. (rail =line)
* Multiple 12V lines are not required for nVidia SLI certification of PSUs. AFAIK, the certification is provided after nVidia actually tests the PSU in specific SLI configs under vafrious loads.
* The 240VA max limit stipulated in Intel's ATX12V v2.xx document has actually been defunct for at least 6 months, depite the absence of any change in the spec doc itself. Intel has verbally informed PSU makers that this is no longer required.
* The most interesting portion of the extremetech article is the cross-loading behavior of SUs, ie, need to load both the 5V and 3.3V loads at least a bit to ensure very high 12V output performance. "

actually looking at the whole thread is better:

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto...=&sid=21f798491f1e55da47586fb508d31535

 

[Icepick]

I'm a fan of SPCR myself. Mike Chin is cool because he actually participates in his own forums and will probably respond to a thread that you post there.

 

[chucky2]

Personally I liked the idea of a single large 12V amp line to the option dual limited 12V medium amp lines.

When I built my brothers PC I put in it an Antec True550 EPS12V, which had only one 12V rail but it carried up to 36A. It ended up dying a short while ago, and I went round and round with Antec customer support, who, while speedy in response, just were not getting the concept that the Antec TPII550 EPS12V they wanted to give me was not as good as what I'd originally used.

Check out this link at SLIZone: 7900GTX and 7800GTX 512MB SLI certified power supplies:

Basically the power supplies in there are either dedicated power supply bricks, or tri and quad rail 12V power supplies. However, there are (at present) four 12V single rail large amp power supplies, namely the PCP&C 610 and 750 EPS12V's, the Silverstone ST56ZF, and the Sparkle FSP550PLG-SLI 550W.

What interesting as that as of a month ago, only the Silverstone and the Sparkle were on that list, so PCP&C has actually just come out - or just been certifed by nVidia, not sure which - with a couple of power supplies that aren't dual/tri/quad rail, but rather, back to the old faithful single 12V rail.

Sure wish Antec would have went and read the threads like these I posted... :disgust:

Chuck

 

[imported_RedStar]

also, this article fully explains the problem as my understanding on this topic was obviously impaired to begin with.

http://www.motherboards.org/articles/guides/1487_3.html

the trend is indeed to damn the atx 2 spec as intel has partially already done verbally as per the other article.

 

[imported_jamesavery22]

The Intel spec for dual rails isn't really for dual rails, its not even a spec anymore:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page3.html

Its called the 240VA spec. No more than 240VA is supposed to be pulled from a single wire/connection/trace, not "rail." So you are limited to 18A - 20A on a 12v line.

And pretty much all ATX PSU's that advertise dual-rail or multi-rail aren't really multi-rail. The old definition in ATX and EPS documentations of "rails" was along the lines of having its own plane. So its own inductor/rectifier and regulator.
All the multi-rail ATX PSU's, even PC Power & Cooling, just split the output from the rectifier and have multiple regulators. So a single 40-60amp rectifier is feeding two 20A 12v regulators.

There are true multi-plane/rail PSU's but nothing that would fit in an ATX case that I know of. Might be a few EPS12v ones. Those huge 12" cubed PSU's that you'd see in some big Compaq or Dell workstation/server are the only ones I've actually seen.

If you compare two cheap ass PSU's then yes dual rails could be better. I'd much rather have one huge 12v rail with one high quality regulator than one 12v plane with multiple regulators.

 

[Skott]

So, a psu type like the Silverstone ST56ZF 560w, shown in link below, is the type of psu (single 12v rail) users should be looking for wether dual card or non-dual card systems? JonnyGuru gave it a decent rating so using it as an example.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/PSU/ST56ZF/

 

[Bobthelost]

Single rail is better, but for single card users it's imaterial. Unless the 300W doom and gloom prophecies of G80 are true, in which case it's time to ditch the dual rail PSUs as they'll never hack it.

 

[w00t]

I think ima just get the S12-600W I'll be running one X1900XT

 

[imported_RedStar]

as we get closer to the arrival, some of the rumours are taking on a substative form.

here, it looks definate that the r600 will consume 250 W of power.

It also seems definate that there is an external power supply for it. So perhaps an option to have it or not



now lets scale back that definite word and throw in the classic ...almost... in front of it