Missed the live stream? You fool! But here is the reply of the event and quite honestly it turned out better than I expected. If you don't learn something about power supplies by watching this, I'll eat my shoe.
Countless readers ask us for advice on power supplies. What makes power supplies different, how do you calculate how big of a PSU you need, are single rail units the best? That is just a sample of the inquiries that find their way to us.
After months of scheduling, I was finally able to wrangle in our resident power supply expert, Lee Garbutt, responsible for basically all of the power supply testing on PC Perspective since the beginning, for a LIVE stream to talk all about power supplies!
Learn about Power Supplies with Ryan and Lee – Live Stream
10am PT / 1pm ET – July 17th
PC Perspective Live! Page
What can you expect to learn during our live stream? Here is a sample of the topics we are going to cover:
Why are PC power supplies called switchers or switching power supplies?
What qualities characterize a good PSU?
What is Power Factor Correction and is it the same thing as Efficiency?
What’s all the hype about single versus multi rail output? Which is better? And what’s a rail anyway?
Let’s look inside a PSU and show me what the main components are?
Let’s talk about how you test a PSU. What tests do you perform? What equipment do you use, etc.?
We'll be monitoring the chat room in our PC Perspective Live! page for more questions during the stream of course but if you have any pressing issues you want to be sure are addressed, please leave a note in our comments below! For those of you that CAN join us live, we have another reason to attend…PRIZES!!
EVGA was kind enough to donate a EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G2 PSU and a SuperNOVA NEX750G Gold power supply! What do have to do to enter? Just be in the live stream and pay attention – we'll have the details there during the LIVE stream!
Again, that's July 17th at 1pm ET / 10am PT for an informative discussion about the power supplies that make all of our PC gaming goodness possible!
Im glad you guys are doing
Im glad you guys are doing this live case but come on man! 1pm! I will be at work! 🙁
We’ll have it on YouTube
We'll have it on YouTube later in the day, don't worry!
On really cheap power
On really cheap power supplies, the main parts that fail are the capacitors, since those companies seem to have a habit of using cheap 85c caps in close proximity to the heatsinks, (often touching them).
I have an old 300 Watt generic power supply that came with. $25 case with free shipping about 9 years ago. The power supply stopped working within a year, but I repaired it by replacing almost all of the capacitors with higher quality 125c 10000 hour ones, and the power supply has been going strong in a NAS build to this day.
What are your thoughts on getting more users repair and improve cheap power supplies.
It is safe to do as long as the user does not try to eat any of the components in the power supply.
Is there actually a
Is there actually a difference between the power that 6pin connectors can handle vs 8pin connectors given that several graphics card companies include 6pin to 8pin adapters?
What % over your expected full load would you recommend purchasing (120% of expected load, 150%, 175%, etc)?
Is there anything different you would look for in a PSU for a gaming machine vs a home server (15-20 hard drives)? Single rail vs multi rail for each application?
8pin PCI-e provide 150 watts
8pin PCI-e provide 150 watts of power where as 6pin only give 75 watts. The 1 6 to 8pin I seen used the 2 6pin PCIe to make it 1 8pin, then 2x molex plus to 1 6pin for other plug.
When you figure out what your system needs(people may disagree with me) I would say 150% as that gives good headroom. less you are saying expected load is like 2-300watts then might consider as much as 200% since 20-50% is not very much.
about only real difference between one you want for a homer server with all those drives, is a PSU that has enough power connectors for all those drives.
Correct 8 pin delivers
Correct 8 pin delivers 150W.
Strange though I used to run a 5970 which had both 6 and 8 pin connector. I had to use an adapter on PSU to fit the 8 pin because my PSU only has 6 pin connectors. It had the wattage and amps power rating sufficient for the card and it ran fine despite the 6 pin limited to 75 watts.
If you look at the fourth pic
If you look at the fourth pic in on this MSI 770 (which has two 8pin connectors), you can see it has two separate 6pin to 8pin adapters, not the 2 6pin to 1 8pin Y adapter you are describing.
http://www.newegg.com/Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127741
On a new build I did
On a new build I did recently, I noticed the absence of a fan lead on the Corsair PSU, as well as the absence of a PWR_FAN header on the Z87-based motherboard. Is the market trending away from the motherboard-controlled PSU fans that were popular in the last decade?
Very informative stuff!
Very informative stuff!
Thanks for this video i’m
Thanks for this video i’m looking forward to watching it when i have some spare time.
Love this website.
Great show Ryan…need more
Great show Ryan…need more stuff like this…perhaps someone from Nvidia or AMD ???
Ryan…why is there not a
Ryan…why is there not a push to change the USA system to 240V like Europe ?
I have noticed in your tests that 240V is significantly more efficient and would be a good thing.
Is it more dangerous ? What gives ?