New silence/efficiency PSU king on the market.

[Nerror]

Just saw this review this morning: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article806-page1.html

The new Enermax Modu82+ 625W PSU seems to be the new king when it comes to efficiency and silence, edging out the Seasonic built Corsair HX620W, albeit only by a little. It's also ATX 2.3 ready for next years mobos.

I was just about to order the Corsair HX620W when I saw this one, and now I am glad I waited. I just need to find a place in Denmark where they sell it. :)

I mean, at 250W load it's 89% efficiency (240VAC input) and 21 dBa@1m (18 dBa ambient), and at 300W it's 88% efficiency and 22 dBa! Pure win. :mrgreen: (slightly lower efficiency for you backwater 120VAC americans :p)

Another thing that hooked me is that the fan is a PWM fan where the lead isn't soldered to the board, so it's easy to switch if it starts making noises (double ball bearing).

I hope more serious review sites test it so I can make sure the quality is on par with the Corsair unit.

[Sentack]

Nice, very nice. I like these power supplies that now have detachable cables. Lets you keep things neat and clean. But my god, $166 bucks?! I mean I can understand it's a great power supply but that's like almost the price of a Wii. Yesh!

[Ragenrok]

most good power supplies that are around 600W are about $150 unless on sale

[Sentack]

Humor me, what needs +600W these days? Motherboards? The average PC I know of has 1 HD, 1 DVD Burner, 1 Floppy Drive, 2 Processors, and 1 Video Card. All of which do need some extra power but +600W of it?

[Ragenrok]

an Q6600, 2x HD3870 X2, 4gig ram, 2 HD all overclocked can use up to 900W.

Even just using 1 Q6600 and 1 HD3870 X2 heavly overclocked with some HDD's could be to much for a 600W PSU as you never want to use more than 90% of a PSU's rated supply.

Now I aggree that the Average user will probably never need 600W or more but for someone who like to have alot of high powered components its more than possible.

[Nerror]

an Q6600, 2x HD3870 X2, 4gig ram, 2 HD all overclocked can use up to 900W.

Even just using 1 Q6600 and 1 HD3870 X2 heavly overclocked with some HDD's could be to much for a 600W PSU as you never want to use more than 90% of a PSU's rated supply.

Now I aggree that the Average user will probably never need 600W or more but for someone who like to have alot of high powered components its more than possible.

Uhhh wow no, that's so wrong and completely off the scale... That setup you described is perhaps 450W max at full load if heavily overclocked. There's a lot of misinformation out there, along with some very faulty calculators. Check out the OC Bible (http://files.aoaforums.com/D316-OC%20Bible.html) for a realistic PSU calculator.

Humor me, what needs +600W these days? Motherboards? The average PC I know of has 1 HD, 1 DVD Burner, 1 Floppy Drive, 2 Processors, and 1 Video Card. All of which do need some extra power but +600W of it?

It's not the max wattage you should buy after, it's the efficiency at your projected watt range (idle - load), stability of the rails, ripple, amps, heat and noise, etc. You never want to stress a PSU, that's just asking for trouble in the long run. If a 625W PSU has peak efficiency at 250-300W and that's what your system pulls, then who cares about the max wattage? If you can get a 525W or 425W PSU with the same efficiency in those ranges, that's even better (assuming they are cheaper and of comparable quality)

[8igdave]

an Q6600, 2x HD3870 X2, 4gig ram, 2 HD all overclocked can use up to 900W.

Even just using 1 Q6600 and 1 HD3870 X2 heavly overclocked with some HDD's could be to much for a 600W PSU as you never want to use more than 90% of a PSU's rated supply.

Now I aggree that the Average user will probably never need 600W or more but for someone who like to have alot of high powered components its more than possible.

Are you sure about that? The 3870X2 is ment to run quite comfortably on a 520w corsair with all the other things attached. overclocking realluy doesn't add that much more to the wattage i dont think anway. The 3870x2 doesn't draw a huge more then the 8800GTX unless really stressed out. two of them would most probably be fine on a 620wcorsair also.

Humor me, what needs +600W these days? Motherboards? The average PC I know of has 1 HD, 1 DVD Burner, 1 Floppy Drive, 2 Processors, and 1 Video Card. All of which do need some extra power but +600W of it?

yeah i agree, unless running a dual card setup you dont really need more then 450w psu as that should give you about 400-420w of actual power and even the top end single cards wont push you over 400w. I dont think the 2900xt does, but it definitly sucks up the most power.

[8igdave]

It's not the max wattage you should buy after, it's the efficiency at your projected watt range, stability of the rails, ripple, amps, heat and noise, etc. You never want to stress a PSU, that's just asking for trouble in the long run. If a 625W PSU has peak efficiency at 250-300W and that's what your system pulls, then who cares about the max wattage?

What you need to look for is what wattage you are actually getting. Hiper are the biggest conn artists going. Ive already told the story of how they took their top end psu's, added 200w to them and then downgraded all the parts inside. Resulting in everyone recomending them being great psu's and all of a sudden they all go bang in enthusiast's high end pc's way below their serposid wattage.

The hipers also have a stupidly high wattage on their 5 and 3v rails. They put 230w on them and only 320w on the 12v. This gives a 550w psu but only 320w of it is on the 12v. Seasonic will only have 180w on the 3 and 5v rails and they are top end products.

[Nerror]

What you need to look for is what wattage you are actually getting. Hiper are the biggest conn artists going. Ive already told the story of how they took their top end psu's, added 200w to them and then downgraded all the parts inside. Resulting in everyone recomending them being great psu's and all of a sudden they all go bang in enthusiast's high end pc's way below their serposid wattage.

The hipers also have a stupidly high wattage on their 5 and 3v rails. They put 230w on them and only 320w on the 12v. This gives a 550w psu but only 320w of it is on the 12v. Seasonic will only have 180w on the 3 and 5v rails and they are top end products.

Heh that's pretty crappy of them and supports the notion that max listed wattage means little. The devil is in the details when it comes to picking the right PSU for the system.

Anyway, I am gonna wait for a couple more reviews from serious sites on the Modu82+ series before finally deciding. There's always the Corsair 620HX if the build quality of the Enermax's aren't up to snuff.

[Ragenrok]

hey don't tell me im wrong, Im gettig this info from a guy that does PSU reviews, he has managed to pull 900W with the set-up I posted, once I find the link I'll post.

EDIT: found the post I was talking about, its skymtl thats claiming it, and I consider him as good as johnnyguru if not better.

http://forum.ncix.com/forums/index.php?mode=showthread&forum=100&threadid=1594436&pagenumber=2&product_id=28822&subpage=1

You have to remeber those dual core GPU's from ATI take alot of power, running 2 of them at once both being overclocked sucks alot of juice up.

[zer]

I too vouch for skymtl, good man and solid reviewer!

[Nerror]

Sorry I don't buy it. Every other review out there of the 3870X2 have much lower power consumptions. For example, Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3209&p=12):

CPU: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 @ 3.00GHz
Motherboard: EVGA nForce 780i SLI
Video Cards: ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
Video Drivers ATI: 8-451-2-080123a
Hard Drive Seagate 7200.9 300GB 8MB 7200RPM
RAM 4x1GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12
Operating System Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit

Power consumption under load: 290W for the entire system.

Those numbers are in line with pretty much every other review out there. His measurements must have been wrong.

[8igdave]

is he measuyring it from the plug? its the only true way of doing so. Lookign at other reviews they all all claiming around 230w at peak i beleive. 2 of them would not require a 700w psu with a q6600 and all the others.

[Aqe]

nm. .

[zer]

A heavely O.Ced 65nm QuadCore + 2 heavely O.Ced HD3870X2s could easely peak over 500watts @ full TDP. That doesnt count any other things, like water cooling RAM/Motherboard etc.. that also take up alot of juice.

[Nerror]

Ok I did some more research into this, and I can see now that with extremely good water cooling, or better yet extreme cooling solutions (ln2, phase change, chillers, peltier, etc), it might be possible to get to that 900W mark. After a certain point, when overclocking, power consumption starts going up exponentially. It really kicks in after that point where even increasing the voltage by sizable amounts results in very few extra stable MHz.

The best article on the topic that I could find is one by Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3184&p=1), where they look at the QX9650 CPU. They also go into the importance of having a Vdroop, and it's generally very informative for overclockers. It dispells some myths, and it shows how efficiency (performance/watt) might become more and more important to people.

It also shows the importance of a great PSU for overclockers.

[Nerror]

New review at Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.aspx?i=3270&p=1