The Power Supply FAQ. Please read before asking your PSU question!
 

I am a firm believer in the importance of a good PSU when using a graphics card in your system.
Why would anyone want to connect an untrustworthy or insuficient power supply to their brand
new $300.00 video card? Well hopefully after reading through this FAQ you will be armed with enough
knowledge that you will never have to worry about your PSU destroying your expensive components.

Table of contents:

Post 1
Intro
Table of contents
Wattages and rails

Post 2
Brands

Post 3
Neato PSU features
ATX/BTX
Connections

Wattages and rails

What are Watts?
PC components consume power in the form of Watts. CPUs, hard drives, video cards, optical drives,
fans, 12V water cooling pumps all rely on the PSU for their power needs.

Every power supply out there should tell you how many Watts of power they can provide and sustain.


How many Watts does my system require?
This is going to vary depending on your specific components. First I am going to start of with
general "rules of thumb".

When you look at the retail box of current nVidia and ATI video cards it should list the Wattage of
power supply that is required in the "System Requirements". Usually they only tell you what you need
to run the single card in the box even if the card can be used with SLi or CrossFire.

These numbers take into account the average PC as well. This means that if you have a very power
hungry CPU and more than 2 hard drives, 2 optical drives, 4 case fans and a 12V water cooling pump
you may want to get a power supply with about 20-30 Watts more than what they suggest.

Below I have listed the most common PSU requirements by Wattage and the single graphics cards that
require that amount of power.

250 Watts or greater
MX 4000 PCI
FX 5200 PCI and AGP
FX 5500 PCI and AGP
X300 SE

300 Watts or greater
Ageia's Physx Physics Accelerator
6200 PCI and AGP
6600 LE
6800 (18 Amps)
6800 XT (18 Amps)
7300 GS (20 Amps)
7600 GS (20 Amps)
9700 Pro
9800 series
X700 series
X800 series
X1300 512MB

350 Watts or greater
6600
6600 GT
6800 GS (18 Amps)
6800 GT
7300 GS PCI
7900 GT (26 Amps)
X850 series
All In Wonder 2006 Edition
X1300 Pro
X1600 series

400 Watts or greater
7800 GS AGP (20 Amps)
7900 GTX (26 Amps)
X1900 GT (25 Amps)

450 Watts or greater
X1800 XL
X1800 XT
X1800 CrossFire Edition
X1900 CrossFire Edition (30 Amps)
X1900 XT (30 Amps)
X1900 XTX (30 Amps)

600 Watts or greater
7900 GX2 (two pcbs)
7950 GX2 (two pcbs)

Below I have listed the most common PSU requirements by Wattage and the dual graphics card setups
that require that amount of power.
Here are the links to ATI and nVidia's certified PSU lists:
nVidia's SLi certified PSUs
ATI's CrossFire certified PSUs

400 Watts or greater
6600 SLi
7300 LE SLi
7300 GS SLi
7600 GS SLi
X300 CrossFire
X600 CrossFire
X700 Pro CrossFire
X800 CrossFire
X800 GT CrossFire
X1300 CrossFire
X1600 XT CrossFire

430 Watts or greater
6600 GT SLi
7600 GT SLi
X800 Pro CrossFire
X800 XL CrossFire
X800 XT CrossFire

450 Watts or greater
6800 GT SLi
7800 GT SLi
7900 GT SLi
X800 XT-PE CrossFire
X850 XT CrossFire
X850 XT-PE CrossFire
X1800 XL CrossFire

550 Watts or greater
6800 Ultra SLi
7800 GTX SLi
7900 GTX SLi
X1800 XT CrossFire
X1900 XT CrossFire

600 Watts or greater
7800 GTX 512MB SLi
X1900 XTX CrossFire

850 Watts or greater
7900 GX2 Quad SLi
7950 GX2 Quad SLi
Note: VoodooPC uses a 650 Watt PSU built by them for their Quad SLI system and Falcon Northwest
uses a Silverstone 600 Watt PSU for theirs. If you ask me that is not enough, but if it works I guess
that's fine. Alienware uses a 850 Watt PSU built by them.

If the "rules of thumb" do not apply to you because you have more or less components
in your system you should try using this wonderful Wattage calculator.

eXtreme OuterVision's eXtreme PSU Calculator v1.3

I like it because it lists tons of new and old video cards and it is very up-to-date.


What are "rails"?
"Rails" refer to the different voltages that a PSU supplies. They include the 3.3V, 5V, and 12V lines.
The 3.3V, 5V and -12V lines are connected to your motherboard inside that groovy 20 or 24 pin connector.
The +12V line(s) power all your hard drives, optical drives, graphics cards and any case fans not
connected to your motherboard.

Unless you are getting a high range video card or you are going to have a SLi/CrossFire setup you should
look for a PSU with at least 25 Amps on the +12V rail. Of course getting a PSU with more Amps wouldn't hurt!;)
If you are going to get a high range video card or a SLi/CrossFire setup read the requirements of the cards,
but you will need something over 30 Amps.

These specs were taken from PC and Power Cooling's and Enermax's websites. The areas boxed in red
tell you how many Amps are on the +12V rail for the 1,000 Watt PSU from PC and Power Cooling
and the 620 Watt Liberty from Enermax.



Nowadays power supplies may come with 2, 3, or 4 +12V rails so be careful when the specs proclaim
something outrageous like "60 Amps combined" on a PSU with 4 +12V rails. It may be true but only two
of the rails are for your graphics cards. The other two are for your CPU.

Brands

As I always say over and over and over again. Brand is extremely important in the realm of power supplies.
That is why this section is devoted to the few brands out there that I and other knowledgeable people
recommend or approve of.

First a quick list and then I will go into more detail on each brand.

Antec
Cooler Master
Enermax
Fortron
Hiper
OCZ
PC Power and Cooling
SeaSonic
Sparkle
Tagan/E-Power
Thermaltake

Here is an excellent list of PSU brands that you should never buy.
Thermaltake is on that list but that post has not been updated since 2005.

Here's a little legend for you all, cause I am gonna throw around some numbers that I
have calculated.

I went to New Egg's site and I collected the %age of excellent and good reviews of all the retail PSUs
that New Egg has in stock from each company.
NEAR Ex = New Egg Approval Rating Excellent = % of people who find the PSUs to be "Excellent" (5 eggs).
NEAR Gd= New Egg Approval Rating Good = % of people who find the PSUs to be "Good" (4 eggs).
NEAR Tl= New Egg Approval Rating Total = Sum of NEAR Ex and NEAR Gd.

Antec

August 25, 2006 stats: 17 retail PSUs ranging from $49.99 to $159.99. Total reviews = 1,371.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 66.27%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 13.67%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 79.94%

Antec PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-380 ATX12V 380W
Excellent 90.32% 28 votes
Good 9.68% 3 votes
There are no "Average", "Poor", or "Very Poor" votes.

Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-480 ATX12V 480W
Excellent 90% 18 votes
Good 5% 1 vote
Poor 5% 1 vote
There are no "Average" or "Very Poor" votes.
The one person who voted "Poor" titled his review "Not Sure Who To Blame". The first one was DoA and
the second worked great until he tinkered with his other PC compenents. He ended up buying another
Antec PSU (a SmartPower) from Staples and he has had no further problems.

Antec PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

Antec NeoPower NeoHE 380 ATX12V 380W
Excellent 27.27% 3 votes
Good 9.09% 1 vote
Average 9.09% 1 vote
Poor 27.27% 3 votes
Very Poor 27.27% 3 votes
Some people have issues because the supply won't work well with their motherboard and another user
who bought "10-15" of these PSUs had 3 fail on him due to the "glue Antec uses to secure components is
not strong enough or applied well enough, which causes components to be loose and flop around inside."

Antec NeoHE 430 ATX12V 430W
Excellent 45.45% 10 votes
Good 13.64% 3 vote
Average 4.55% 1 vote
Poor 18.18% 4 votes
Very Poor 18.18% 4 votes
Killed $900.00 worth of hardware, does not work with several Asus boards, will not power all components
at once and reports of the PSU becoming loud or making clicking noises.

Cooler Master

August 25, 2006 stats: 6 retail PSUs ranging from $33.99 to $119.99. Total reviews = 347.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 77.35%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 7.82%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 85.17%

Cooler Master PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

Cooler Master RS-550-ACLY-SLI ATX12V/ EPS12V 550W
Excellent 82.35% 14 votes
Average 5.88% 1 vote
Poor 5.88% 1 vote
Very Poor 5.88% 1 vote
2 DoAs and 1 person bought it without realizing it was not ATX 2.0.

Cooler Master Real Power RS-450-ACLY ATX12V 450W
Excellent 82.83% 82 votes
Good 11.11% 11 votes
Average 4.04% 4 votes
Very Poor 2.02% 2 votes
1 DoA and someone got a whole new motherboard when it was just a bad PSU.

Cooler Master PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

Cooler Master eXtreme Power 713001180 ATX12V 600W
Excellent 40.38% 21 votes
Good 15.38% 8 votes
Average 9.62% 5 votes
Poor 5.77% 3 votes
Very Poor 28.85% 15 votes
DoAs, it will boot up PC once then never again, and voltage dropping.

Enermax

August 25, 2006 stats: 19 retail PSUs ranging from $32.99 to $359.99. Total reviews = 688.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 75.67%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 10.68%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 86.35%

Enermax PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

Enermax Coolergiant EG485AX-VHB SFMA 2.0 ATX12V 480W
Excellent 100% 4 votes

Enermax EG465P-VE 24P ATX 460W
Excellent 100% 11 votes

Enermax EG651P-VE FM(24P) ATX 550W
Excellent 100% 20 votes

Enermax Whisper II EG465P-VE FMA(24) ATX12V 460W
Excellent 92% 23 votes
Average 4% 1 vote
Very Poor 4% 1 vote
The person who voted "Very Poor" said that he bought 4 and all 4 failed. I find that highly unlikely.

Enermax PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

Enermax Noisetaker II EG701AX VE(W) SFMA ATX12V Ver 2.2 600W
Excellent 42.31% 11 votes
Good 15.38% 4 votes
Average 7.69% 2 votes
Poor 7.69% 2 votes
Very Poor 26.92% 7 votes
DoAs random errors and sparks. One of them stuck with Enermax and received a PSU that has not quit on him yet.


Fortron

August 25, 2006 stats: 15 reviewed retail PSUs ranging from $34.99 to $149.99. Total reviews = 320.
6 of the retail PSUs on New Egg have no reviews.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 72.59%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 19.39%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 91.98%

Fortron PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

Fortron FSP400-60THN-R ATX12V 400W
Excellent 100% 7 votes

Fortron AX400-PN 400W
Excellent 93.94% 62 votes
Good 4.55% 3 votes
Average 1.52% 1 votes
Average voter says it is not very quiet.

Fortron AX500-A 500W
Excellent 86.36% 57 votes
Good 4.55% 3 votes
Average 4.55% 3 votes
Poor 1.52% 1 vote
Very Poor 3.03% 2 votes
2 DoAs and another died after 6 months.

Fortron PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

Fortron ZEN FSP300-60GNF-R ATX12V 300W
Excellent 60% 3 votes
Very Poor 40% 2 votes
One would not stay on in even a PIII system and the other blew smoke after it was repaired.

Hiper

August 25, 2006 stats: 4 reviewed retail PSUs all for $99.99. Total reviews = 70.
1 of the retail PSUs on New Egg has no reviews.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 89.57%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 9.35%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 98.91%

Hiper PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

Hiper HPU-4K580-MS ATX12V 580W
Excellent 89.19% 33 votes
Good 10.81% 4 votes

HIPER HPU-4B580-MS ATX12V 580W
Excellent 91.3% 21 votes
Good 4.25% 1 vote
Very Poor 4.25% 1 vote
A PSU died after 8 months.

Hiper PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

The lowest scoring PSU has 7 Excellent votes and 2 Good votes, out of 9 votes. That is not bad.


OCZ

August 25, 2006 stats: 6 retail PSUs from $79.99 to $139.99. Total reviews = 447.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 79.04%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 10.86%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 89.90%

OCZ PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

OCZ GameXStream OCZ600GXSSLI ATX12V 600W
Excellent 88.24 15 votes
Good 11.76% 2 votes

OCZ PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

OCZ ModStream OCZ45012U 450W
Excellent 65.59% 61 votes
Good 16.13% 15 votes
Average 9.68% 9 votes
Poor 6.45% 6 votes
Very Poor 2.15% 2 votes
Failures at 8 days, 2 weeks, 33 days, 6 weeks, 6 weeks 3 months and 3 months.

PC Power & Cooling

August 25, 2006 stats: 5 reviewed retail PSUs from $169.99 to $509.99. Total reviews = 215.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 86.45%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 8.81%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 95.26%

PC Power & Cooling PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW-Quad SLI T1KW-4E EPS12V 1000W
Excellent 100% 11 votes

PC Power & Cooling PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW EPS12V SLI, SSI
Excellent 69.7% 23 votes
Good 18.18% 6 votes
Average 6.06% 2 votes
Poor 6.06% 2 votes
It received 2 "Poor" votes due to louder noise levels than expected.

SeaSonic

August 25, 2006 stats: 5 retail PSUs from $54.00 to $159.99. Total reviews = 294.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 80.64%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 8.8%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 89.44%

SeaSonic PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

SeaSonic S12-380 ATX12V 380W
Excellent 90.62% 29 votes
Good 6.25% 2 votes
Average 3.12% 1 vote

SeaSonic PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

SeaSonic S12-600 ATX12V 600W
Excellent 65.05% 67 votes
Good 9.71% 10 votes
Average 2.91% 3 votes
Poor 7.77% 8 votes
Very Poor 14.56% 15 votes
Does not work with DFI NF4 motherboards, someone's 12V was only 6V, defective fan, DoAs, and
ugly wiring.

Brands continued

Sparkle
Between May and August 25th VERY few people have left any reviews for even the best Sparkle PSUs. Why??

August 25, 2006 stats: 17 PSUs (15 are OEM) from $13.99 to $139.99. Total Sparkle PSU reviews = 167.
Newegg only has one retail Sparkle PSU, the other 20 are OEM.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 77.19%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 15.98%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 93.17%

Sparkle PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

Sparkle FSP350-60PN ATX 350W OEM
Excellent 100% 4 votes

Sparkle FSP180-50NIV SFX 180W OEM
Excellent 100% 11 votes

SPARKLE FSP300-60PN ATX 300W OEM
Excellent 100% 8 votes

SPARKLE FSP550-60PLG EPS12V 550W OEM
Excellent 85.71% 18 votes
Good 4.76% 1 vote
Average 4.76% 1 vote
Poor 4.76% 1 vote
One PSU died after a year and took 2 hard drives with it.

Sparkle PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

SPARKLE Power Q ATX-350GU ATX 350W
Excellent 72.22% 13 votes
Good 16.67% 3 votes
Very Poor 11.11% 2 votes
One PSU blew up and the other was apparently too loud.

Tagan/E-Power

August 25, 2006 stats: 8 PSUs from $24.99 to $90.99. Total reviews = 105.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 73.65%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 11.61%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 85.26%

Tagan PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

ePOWER Tagan Cheetah EP-450XP-C1B ATX 450W
Excellent 91.67% 11 votes
Poor 8.33% 1 vote
DoA.

ePOWER Tagan EP-520XP-C1B ATX12V 520W
Excellent 83.33% 10 votes
Good 8.33% 1 vote
Average 8.33% 1 vote

Tagan PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

ePOWER Tagan Puma II EP-450XP-P2B ATX12V 450W
Excellent 73.91% 17 votes
Good 8.7% 2 votes
Poor 4.35% 1 vote
Very Poor 13.04% 3 votes
Has no PCI Express connector, died after 4 days and not delivering the advertised power.

Thermaltake

August 25, 2006 stats: 14 PSUs from $39.99 to $189.99. Total reviews = 1,588.
Notes:
The Thermaltake Silent PurePower TT-420AD(DUAL FAN) ATX 420W has been rated 520
times by New Egg customers, the Thermaltake TR2 W0070 ATX 430W has been rated
810 times! Apparently those PSUs are wildly popular.
August 25, 2006 NEAR Ex = 63.49%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Gd = 15.49%
August 25, 2006 NEAR Tl = 78.98%

Thermaltake PSUs that stand out according to New Egg's customers:

Thermaltake Silent Purepower W0014RU ATX 480W
Excellent 83.46% 217 votes
Good 7.69% 20 votes
Average 3.46% 9 votes
Poor 3.46% 9 votes
Very Poor 1.92% 5 votes
Several died after 3 months to a year, some taking motherboards with them.

Thermaltake TR2 W0070 ATX 430W
Excellent 79.38% 643 votes
Good 13.33% 108 votes
Average 2.72% 22 votes
Poor 2.1% 17 votes
Very Poor 2.47% 20 votes
Many DoA's, some died after 1 to 2 weeks and some people had problems with the rails not staying
within tolerance levels.

Thermaltake Silent PurePower TT-420AD(DUAL FAN) ATX 420W
Excellent 80.38% 418 votes
Good 9.81% 51 votes
Average 5.19% 27 votes
Poor 3.27% 17 votes
Very Poor 1.35% 7 votes
The "Very Poor" ratings stem from DoAs and failures after 2 weeks to 1 year and most of the "Poor"
ratings have to do with the PSU being too loud.

Thermaltake PSUs that have the lowest New Egg ratings:

Thermaltake W0057 PurePower ATX 12V 2.0 500W
This PSU has the lowest ratings out of all the PSUs made by the companies in this FAQ.
Excellent 38.46% 5 votes
Good 7.69% 1 vote
Poor 23.08% 3 votes
Very Poor 30.77% 4 votes
DoAs, and failing after 5 days to 2 months. An electronic technician with "over 40 years experience"
says it is a poorly built PSU.
Funny quote from user who had bad experience with Thermaltake Customer Service:
"I would not recommend Thermaltake PS's to my most bitter nemesis."
He used the word "nemesis"! Who uses that word, or even has a nemesis?

Thermaltake Pure Power W0073RU ATX 520W
Excellent 46.15% 6 votes
Good 7.69% 1 vote
Average 23.08% 3 votes
Poor 7.69% 1 vote
Very Poor 15.38% 2 votes
2 DoA's and a PSU that fried a motherboard and died.

Thermaltake Silent Pure Power W0049RUC ATX12V/ EPS12V 680W
Excellent 49.18% 30 votes
Good 8.2% 5 votes
Average 8.2% 5 votes
Poor 11.48% 7 votes
Very Poor 22.95% 14 votes
Many report that it cannot handle SLi, one man says when his Dual Xeon workstation utilized both
CPUs with multithreading in action the computer would shut down after 2 seconds. A few users
reported failures after 1 to 9 months. Several said the fans in the PSU stop working or never work.

BRAND SUMMARY AREA

NEAR Tl basically means the percentage of New Egg customers who would recommend PSUs from
each brand because it adds the percentage of all the users who voted "Excellent" and "Good"
together. So let's line up all these brands by that value.

NEAR Tl
100% Hiper (only 5 ratings though)
92.94% PC Power and Cooling (very expensive stuff)
91.98% Fortron
91.93% Sparkle (4 PSUs with 100% "Excellent" rating and less than 5 votes)
91.05% OCZ
90.81% Cooler Master
89.93% Enermax
89.02% Tagan (4 PSUs with 100% "Excellent" rating and less than 5 votes)
88.36% SeaSonic
79.97% Antec
78.93% Thermaltake

The whole enchilada can been seen in this nifty graph.


Neato PSU features

Modular Power Supplies

Modular power supplies are a relatively new and pretty sweet feature. Many people who build their
own computers often like to minamize the amount of cables that wind through their computer
case, and modular power supplies make this task sooo much easier.

Modular in this context means "flexible arrangement and use". Modular power supplies allow you to
disconnect the power supply cables that you are not using in your computer at the power supply
unit. You just unplug the cables you don't need and you can throw them in you junk drawer until
you need them.

The picture below is of the 620 Watt Liberty PSU from Enermax.

Notice that there are 8 cables that can be disconnected from the PSU. The only cable that
cannot be disconnected is the cable for the motherboard. The two red connections are
for your PCI-E graphics cards and the other 6 are for your hard drives, fans and optical drives.

On Newegg.com they have 55 modular PSUs out of a total of 319. Out of those 55, 16 of them
are from brands recommended in this FAQ as of June 14th 2006. I will list all 16 of those right here:

Antec NeoPower NeoHE 380 ATX12V 380W
Antec NeoHE 430 ATX12V 430W
Antec NeoHE 500 ATX12V 500W
Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-500 ATX12V 500W
ENERMAX Liberty ELT400AWT ATX12V 400W
ENERMAX Liberty ELT500AWT ATX12V 500W
ENERMAX Liberty ELT620AWT ATX12V 620W
HIPER HPU-4B580-MS ATX12V 580W
HIPER HPU-4K580-MS ATX12V 580W
HIPER HPU-4R580-MS ATX12V 580W
HIPER HPU-4S580-MS ATX12V 580W
OCZ ModStream OCZ45012U ATX/BTX/PCI Express/SATA 450W
OCZ ModStream OCZ52012U ATX, BTX, SATA, P4 and EPS12V 620W
Tagan TG-530-U15 ATX12V Version 2.01 530Watts
Thermaltake W0057RU-01 PurePower TWV ATX 12V 2.0 500W
Thermaltake W0073RU Pure Power ATX 520W

I should get power requirements into the database. Then turn this into an article and link it from the card pages...:)

Great write up!!

Could this be the first sticky of the forums?

Definitely..whoa im dissy

Thanks for sharing. Do you also use UPS in your system? It's important that you have one too especially when you are protecting a lot of devices or electronic equipment.

Uninterruptible Power Supplies