Testing
Test System
Testing was done on the following system:
| Test System | |
| CPU | AMD Athlon II X4 645 @ 3.1GHz |
| Heatsink | GlacialTech Igloo 5760 |
| Motherboard | Jetway Hummer HA-09 |
| Chipset | AMD 890GX |
| Graphics card | Sparkle GeForce GTX 465 |
| RAM | 2x4GB SuperTalent DDR3-2000 @ 1600MT/s, CL9 |
| Sound | Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Edition |
| SSD | Crucial RealSSD 256GB SATA 6Gb/s |
| HDD 1 | Seagate 7200.10 500GB |
| HDD 2 | Western Digital Caviar Green 5900RPM 500GB |
| Optical Drive | Plextor PX-B120U BD-ROM |
| Power Supply | Sparkle Gold Class SCC-850AF |
| Case | Silverstone Fortress FT-02 |
| OS | Windows 7 Ultimate |
| Drivers | Forceware 258.96 |
Installation was straightforward and simple. The SATA and Molex cables stretched well across the considerable length of the FT-02—almost 600mm from the PSU in the back to the drive cages in the front. The included velcro ties helped to keep everything tidy, and were easy to reposition as I tried out different cable arrangements across the back of the motherboard tray.
Testing was done in a fairly old-fashioned way: multimeter probes were inserted into the power connectors at motherboard, video card, and one of the hard drives. Then, I watched the multimeter while I powered the system up, booted into Windows and sat idle for a while, then fired up CPUBurn and FurMark and ran them simultaneously for an hour. Power on the 12V, 5V, and 3.3V rails stayed within 0.1v of optimal at all times, and never fluctuated by more than 0.02v. Also, putting my ear directly up to the exhaust grille during stress testing allowed me to hear…almost nothing. There was a slight whirr from the fan’s spinning at low speed, and nothing more.
Conclusion
Sparkle has a real winner here with the Gold Class SCC-850AF power supply. The fit and finish are impeccable, and the extra touches really add to the feeling of quality. With a price of ~$180 at time of publication it’s on the upper end of the range for 850W power supplies, but well worth the price for solid, no-compromise performance.
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.