Hey everyone,

I'm looking for opinions on PSUs as I'm having some issues finding everything I'm searching for. This is for a build I'm planning to start once the Q9450 quads come out.

Here's the specs I'm hoping for:

600-750w
enough juice in the 12V rails to run an 8800gt (or possibly 2 future ATI cards in crossfire if enough power available)
energy efficiency rating of 80plus (or something closely approaching that)
modular cables
Tier 2 or above

I've searched around but all the PSUs I've found lack one or more of these specs. Any suggestions guys?
Thanks.

How about either the Corsair 620W or the Seasonic M12 700W

Corsair HX620

Gets over 80% is quiet and is modular

Even with dual 8800GT's and a quad you are not going to go past 400 watts too often

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article692-page4.html

@ 500 its still over 80%

EDIt....

beat again....

The efficiency rating isn't going to help your power bill. Also the wattage isn't not normally an issue it's the amp on the 12v rail. You can cheat quite a bit on those cards based on the manufactures required specs something like 26amps is what they say. Very few PSU's under 800W support that.

620HX if modular is a very important feature. Silencer 610W or 750W otherwise. Of all 3, the Silencer 750W is the best and there's a good deal right now here:

http://www.buy.com/prod/ocz-silenc [...] 39780.html

50 amps @ 12 volts on that psu(this is based on the fact that there is not allot of 3.3 and 5 on modern systems....so even with loaded 5 and 3.3 there would still be 40 or so)...no problems there...

The card take nowhere near 26 amps on its own. 2 8800GT's in SLI take 15 amps....

26 @ 12 amps is only 312watts

Almost all new PSU's(from good brands) are 12 volt heavy

Hell even my old Smartpower 450 could do 32 amps as long as the 3.3 and 5 lines are not loaded too much...

Ohh and efficiency WILL help you power bill....

400 watts DC load on a 60% efficient PSU takes 560 watts from the wall
400 watts DC load on a 83% efficient PSU takes 468 watts from the wall

I would call that a saving @ 2.2 KW/H per 24 hours of on time something...

Plus, the 92 watts you save would otherwise be turned into heat, increasing the noise and making the fans and the electronic parts die sooner. Yeah, PSU efficiency does matter.

It won't? I replaced two power supplies with energy efficient ones and it really made a difference on my electric bill. A more efficient PSU draws less power from the wall correct?

I'm very happy with my 650W modular TT Toughpower PSU, however the previously mentioned Corsair and Seasonic are at least as good, probably better. I would be hesitant to get any of these power supplies however because they don't have an 8 pin PCI-E power cable.

Correction: the Seasonic does have an 8 pin PCI-E power connector

that said. my old psu in my music/serverish machine used to pump out heat....not with an 80+ the fan spins extremely slow and it puts out much cooler air....

Also my Q6600, 8800GTX +6 hard drives takes less power then then my e6600 + X1900 with 2 drives...why? my old psu was not efficient.

But this is a machine that only takes 125 watts from the wall anyway...I don't miss the hot air

Just put in my order for a Corsair HX yesterday.

BFG sells an adapter from 6-pin to 8-pin for $5, if anybody needs it.

Hey aevm, just thought you should know that the PSU deal is not the PC P&C Silencer 750 Quad, but the OCZ Silencer 750W Quad SLI Ready PSU. Just thought you'd like to know

Didn't OCZ buy out PC Power & Cooling? Sorry if I'm mistaken, but I believe they did get bought out by someone... so that could be the reason for the name change. I believe they're the same PSU though. Correct me if I'm wrong.

*edit*

Good to know. Btw, What exactly is the purpose of the 8-pin if you can just convert it from a 6-pin and still have it work? O.o I would understand the 8-pin if it required 8 wires, 1 for each pin, but since it works w/ just 6 wires... why was the change needed?

@Avenger_K:
You do know that OCZ bought PC Power & Cooling some time ago, right? Some retailers call that PSU OCZ now, but some stick with the old name still.

There are two types of Silencer 750W as far as I know. One is S75QB and the other is S75CF. The S75QB is black, is the one at www.buy.com, and it has 6-pin PCI-E connectors. The other one is red and it has 6/8-pin connectors (so it's better for 3870X2 for example). You can see them both here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 50&x=0&y=0

Both are SLI-ready and Crossfire-ready, don't worry about that. Any 750W PSU should be able to handle two video cards.

Beats me. Another example of weird thinking from ATI???

Antec Neo HE 500/650W (not 80Plus certified, but close, and cheap)
Seasonic M12 500/600/700W
Corsair 520/620HX
Silverstone DA650/DA700/ST75F
Enermax Liberty 400/500/620W
Enermax Infiniti 650/720W

No, I did not realize that. My mistake

In that case that is a very good deal , definitely worth considering.

No worries. I just wish they'd make up their mind if they're OCZ or PC P&C. This whole PSU business is complicated enough already, even without tricks like that