The 1000W Noob question....

Inadequat Power is one of my worst fears, but is it possible to have too much Power. Would this 1000W PSU possibly create problems for me?


GIGABYTE 965P-DQ6 (rev.2.0) Motherboard

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6600 CPU (overclocked)

Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 DDR2 800 (2 Gigs Total)

OCZ ProXStream 1000W PSU

Thermaltake Armor LCS VE2000BWS Case (Liquid Cooled)

BFGTech 8800 GTX Water Cooled Edition Video Card

Western Digital Raptor WD1500AD SATA/150NCQ 150GB 16MB Cache Hard Drive

undecided on Optical Drive

Windows XP



Anticipated Upgrades:

Quad Core

Windows Vista (after bugs are worked out)

2 more Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 DDR2 800 (to bring Memory total to 4 gigs)

2nd BFGTech 8800 GTX Water Cooled Edition Video Card (to bring # of Video Cards to 2)

2nd Western Digital Raptor WD1500AD SATA/150NCQ 150GB 16MB Cache Hard Drive (to bring total hard drive space to 300GB)

I hear you loud and clear. I am now wondering what the best power supply would be.

Cost is not a big concern of mine. Any ideas? Quality is key.

Since you can afford to future proof and plan to double up on the GPU's, get a PS now that will handle your future needs. Any of these should handle the load. Go for more watts if you feel the need. PC Power and Cooling is generally considered top dog but these other manufacturers also make great stuff:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817703008

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817341003

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817151031

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817256007

If you go to PC P&C's website they talk about modular plugs in psu's... they don't like them and don't make any psu's with them... that's not to say they aren't useful but I intend to stay away from modular at over 750w, just for piece of mind.

Here's one way to look at it: A modular PS has 2X (or less) the number of plugs that cause degradation. So if you go non-modular, you'll still have Molex, SATA, 24-pin ATX, etc., connectors at the mobo, HDs, etc.

You could always try the THERMALTAKE TOUGHPOWER line of psu.They offer a great warranty and are made of high quality components,not to mention the built in safety measures.Goodluck. www.thermaltake.com

Dahak

AMD X2-4400+@2.6 S-939
EVGA NF4 SLI MB
2X EVGA 7800GT IN SLI
2X1GIG DDR IN DC MODE
WD300GIG HD
EXTREME 19IN.MONITOR 1280X1024
THERMALTAKE TOUGHPOWER 850WATT PSU
COOLERMASTER MINI R120

It adds to resistance because you have more seperate connectors that may or may not make very good connection. It looks to me like that effect is way overemphasized though, I've never had an issue with modular supplies and looking at it from a more technical standpoint you're not adding much resistance. Just a theory here but the manufacturer may account for the resistance and adjust the PSU accordingly. Remember that a bigger and higher quality power supply = more stability, if you can go for something bigger definitely do it and future proof your system, though keep in mind the industry seems to be coming out with a new connector every other day :?

I always believe what a manufacturer says in their literature...

Total agreement. There are applications where connection quality and reliability are more important. I dunno if they are still in business or not, but there used to be a British high-end speaker builder that would construct a listening room on the side of your home in order to get a proper acoustical environment. They would also silver solder all of the interconnects between components. Their system was about a quarter million USD and you also had to pay for the room. If you blew an amp, a guy in a van would drive up and solder a replacement in and drive away with the refuse. I'm sure they sold a bajillion of them.

I've done installs on research aircraft where the electricals and mechanicals are exposed. Yes, there are many modular connections, but in defense of the industry, the most important devices are connected with extremely high quality plugs. If I'd known 30 years ago what I know now, I would have gone into that biz because the industry pays big bucks for little specialty connectors.

I believe that is correct. It's a trade-off because one can blow a solder joint too. If flat frequency response over extended time periods across a low level cable is real important, then you'll need to clean the connector surfaces regularly. For delivering 5 to 12 volts +/- the typical 50 to 150mV ripple in a PC power supply, it's not so much rocket science.

With all your future upgrades, I estimate you are going to need 50-52 amps on the 12v rails. That is 604-628 Watts for the 12v rails only.