news 28 Posted August 5, 2008 Years ago, it wasn't uncommon to see enthusiasts running generic or case throw-in power supply units. Most wouldn't be caught dead with one now, of course, but back then we had larger problems to deal with and precious few PSUs from which to choose. Fortunately, that's no longer the case. The power supply market has been flooded with new entrants of late, with seemingly every company that caters to enthusiasts looking to jump on the bandwagon. These newcomers join a market teeming with mature players who have been honing their craft for a while, and the resulting selection can be a little overwhelming. Finding a good PSU—or, more specifically, the best power supply—in a sea of largely look-alike competitors is no easy task, particularly when your needs are complex. On one hand, enthusiasts need plenty of wattage and clean power delivery to feed high-performance components. CPU power use may be falling, but GPU power consumption continues to rise, and you want to be sure there's plenty of wattage in reserve to handle The Next Big Thing. At the same time, power efficiency has become an important consideration not only as a token effort to reduce one's carbon footprint (which is really just a ploy to impress that cute, hippy barista at Starbucks), but because lowering power consumption reduces a system's cooling load, allowing for quieter operation. So which among the mob of new models on the market delivers the cleanest, coolest, quietest, and most efficient power? To find out, we've rounded up seven PSUs between 600 and 800W from BFG Tech, Enermax, ePower, Mushkin, OCZ, Thermaltake, and Zalman. We've thrown them all into the ring against not only our beastly load generator, but also our current favorite in this wattage range: PC Power & Cooling's Silencer 750W. Read on to see if the goal posts have moved in our quest for the ultimate enthusiast power supply. http://techreport.com/articles.x/15208 Thanks, Geoff ---- Geoff Gasior The Tech Report http://techreport.com -- To unsubscribe from: TR-News, just follow this link: Share this post Link to post
