ttjph wrote:At risk of going off on a tangent, but I'm curious: is individual rail capacity such an issue that we really need this level of surplus power?
I haven't done the sums, not since physics at school anyway, but the school of thought goes something along the lines of:
with power split over 2 rails, and when this reasoning was sold to me the usual figures were 20-25 amps on each, on paper there's plenty of power. Connect a device that uses a fair amount of juice, lets say 17A, and you're left with between 3 and 8 amps. Thats fine, as long as you don't connect anything that needs 10 amps.....
so.... 2 highish demand components, even though they don't take all the available amps, can leave you with as near as damn it not enough juice left to power what you want.
Don't forget that the wattage quoted on a PSU is what it's capable of, across all the voltage circuits, and not what it will actually be providing at any given time, and as the amps supplied rises for any given voltage then accordingly does the wattage.
Purely by coincidence, I have a 500W PSU sat on my desk that's about 2 years old, out of a chums PC who has just acquired a second 560 graphics card to runin SLI mode (from another mutual chum so we know it's a working card) and a brand new HDD to add to the 2 he already has fitted. Everything sort of worked, but he had issues with the new HDD suddenly being 'lost', odd bits of graphics corruption---all intermittently. OK, nVidia recommend at least a 650W PSU for SLI (so he informed me) but ust removing the GPU still left him with the HDD acting up. He brought it round here and we chucked in my PSU and it worked just as it should, the *broken* PSU has been checked in 3 (less demanding) systems with no issues but even though it's under the specs required for an SLI configuration it doesn't supply the needs when a further HDD is added. This PSU provides 24 amps on the primary rail, 22 on the secondary and admittedly it's a cheap and cheerful model---only markings on it are the ratings sticker but (to me) it reinforces the argument that you need the amps first and foremost, the wattage comes about more because of the maths...if you see what I mean.
To swing us back on topic a wee bit....I'll agree with the comments that the prices we've seen here are a tad high, but just like RSC these companies are in business to make a profit. my only qualm with
anybody offering a custom build service is that generally you can only customise with what they have, and are willing to provide. The other option is a self build project, not that you'd save a lot but you'd get exactly what you wanted (or maybe more accurately in this case what you're TOLD is what you want
)
However, I can't see Paul diving in and spending 6 or 7 hundred quid for something he's no idea how to put together so the only other option is to see if there's a local PC repair shop willing to do the job of assembling customer sourced components---if said customer can be bothered going that route of course. If nothing else it proves thee are pleny of options.
The real beauty of threads like this is the disparity of views we see, different opinions are great for helping folk decide what to buy, admittedly sometimes they ask more questions than they answer but themore informtion Paul has, the easier (eventually) his buying desicion will be to make.
EDIT:apologies for the spelling in places, but it's late...I need sleep...
