A Closer Look, part 2
Pulling the foam caps away, we see that the power supply itself is encased in a velvet bag–a practice normally reserved for precious gems or expensive liquor.
With that final protective layer removed, we can get a good look at the PSU itself. On the front, we see the modular plugs for the device cables, as well as the permanent cables for the motherboard. Sparkle has gone for a fairly foolproof setup here: only two types of plugs, distinguishable by feel as well as by sight. Four PCIe power plugs mean that powering two GTX 480s or two Radeon 5970s is possible without adaptors.
Looking to the sides, we see a reproduction of the box art…
…and an information sticker with all the pertinent information about the outputs of each rail.
On the back, we see the usual perforated grille, along with the AC plug and power switch. As is standard by now, there is no voltage switch; the PSU auto-senses the current coming in and adjusts accordingly.
Flipping it up on end, we see the large intake fan on the bottom. At 139mm, this fan can keep the PSU cool spinning at very low speeds.
I was so stoked about this power supply which I got for a great price. It worked great for 18 months and then it died, possibly my fault/bad outlet etc. What troubles me is that I can get no response from Sparkle’s support e-mail and their website is blocked by Chrome for containing malware. I registered the power supply and supposedly there is a 5 year warranty on it. Who cares if you can’t get service? Why go through all the trouble to put together a great package only to not support it? Disappointing to say the least.
FIVE +12V rails. Jeeez. Why not 7 rails? Or 8? Or 10?
My experience is, that with multiple +12V rails, some of them will not be used at all. Or grossly underused.
For instance, when three of the five +12V rails are dedicated to a pair of 6/8 pin video card connectors each, you’re not using all rails UNLESS you’re building a triple-SLI gaming PC.
Which means, you are paying for a, say, 850W supply but using only a, say, 500W supply.
Also, in many situations, exactly WHICH rail feeds exactly WHICH connector is not clearly documented.
Sure it’s less expensive for the manufacturer to build a power supply with multiple rails.
The more, the merrier, in fact.
A 5 rail, 850W power supply might cost $70 to manufacture whereas a single rail, 850W power supply might cost $80 to manufacture.
Yet expect to pay $150 for either, in retail.
Since a few years, I only buy power supplies which have a single +12V rail and these power supplies fit my needs (for instance, the server with 20 SATA disks or the dual-GTX480-SLI gaming box) much better than multiple +12V rails, some of which would be utterly underutilized.
That’s a valid point you bring up, but the examples you give–dual graphics cards, 20 SATA discs–aren’t much disaccommodated by the multi-rail setup. The graphics cards would be drawing from different power plugs in any event, and this PSU was doubtless designed with exactly that kind of scenario in mind. The rack-o-drives scenario would be more hampered by the limited current available on the 5V and 3.3V rails than any issues stemming from multiple 12V rails.
The only setup I can think of that would really suffer would be a triple-SLI system with a power-hungry watercooling rig–and if you’ve built a monster like that, you really should be looking at the 1000W or 1250W variants in this line.