Debate on Silverstone PSU's

[NoctisReitop]

Non Decathlon

Decathlon

I was wondering if someone could give me a little more information on these two. I did some checking with a power calculator, and it seems a 750w might not cut it. I was looking into an 850w, and these two show up. They appear mostly the same to me, except for the Decathlon has a single rail. What other differences might I be missing? Is the Decathlon worth an extra 100 dollars?

[gvblake22]

First off, what kind of a system are you powering that needs an 850W PSU?! Secondly, the major difference between those two power supplies is that the Decathlon series feature completely modular cables while that ST85F is not modular. The other difference is that the Decathlon (and Olympia) series PSU's from Silverstone are their newest product lines and feature the latest connectors, primarily the 8-pin PCI-Express power connector that is required on new high-end video cards like the AMD HD 2900XT. They also have a different design (as you've noticed) that combines all the 12V rails into one single, large 12V rail. I personally like this single 12V rail design better because it allows for more even power distribution to the different components that feed off 12V power (which is nearly every piece of hardware in your computer) instead of being restricted to only the power available on whatever 12V rail the device happens to be connected to. You can read HardwareLogic's review of the 750W Decathlon here...

As for you question of which to get, I would probably guess neither! I really doubt you will need an 850W PSU. Even the most demanding gaming systems will run just fine on a good 500W PSU or less.

[One4yu2c]

In addition to the Decathlon review GVBlake linked, I also reviewed an Olympia model, which displayed the tightest rails we've had come through HardwareLogic to date. The difference between the two mainly come down to modular cables, and I'd trust either version (Decathlon or Olympia) with a high end rig. In fact, I'm currently the running the Decathlon in my main system, which features a quad-core QX6800 and two 8800GTS videocards, among other goodies.

Regarding wattage requirements, what exactly are you running? Power supplies are one of the most misunderstood components on the market, and I'm not a fan of PSU calculators because some of them help feed into the misconceptions. More important than total wattage is how the wattage is distributed, specifically how many amps are dedicated to the +12V rail(s). It would take a monster of a system to stress a quality 750W, and for the sake of comparison, Rich (Capper) and myself saw Corsair running a quad-core QX6700 outfitted with two 8800GTX videocards in SLI on their HX620 620W power supply.

That being said, if you're looking in 850W territory, the OCZ GameXStream 850W offers a very good bang/buck, and is a solid unit (built by Fortron).

[NoctisReitop]

Well, thing is, I found this power calculator. I plugged in a bunch of variables.

System type: Quad core
MOBO: High end desktop (I'm presuming that a 680i sli mobo is high end??)
Ram: 2 sticks ddr2 sdram
Video Card: GeForce 8800 gtx
Hard Drive: 2 Sata
Drives: 1 cd/dvd burner combo
PCI Cards: 1 soundblaster with front bay
Additional PCI: 1 (I'm bound to put at least one more card in there)
USB: 4 devices. (I'll be running G15 keyboard, mouse, external HDD, and at least one more device)
Fans: 2x 92mm 4x 120mm (those simply come with the case. I kinda hoped to add more)

I put the system peak and cpu usage to 100% to see what it'd draw at maximum... 823w............

That's why I've decided to reconsider the 750w. But my system, so far, looks like this:

Originally Posted by NoctisReitop

Silverstone TJ-07 Case
Silverstone 750w PSU (or 850 if I go through with this revision)
Q6600 Quad Core 2.4 Ghz CPU
EVGA 680i SLI Motherboard
EVGA Gtx Video Card
Crucial PC-8500 Ram
WD Primary 74Gb Raptor HDD
Secondary Seagate 320 Gb Storage HDD
Lite-on DVD Rom

[One4yu2c]

Exactly my point of why I don't favor PSU calculators. Throw a second 8800GTX card into the mix, and that's basically what Corsair showcased running on their 620W power supply. Using that same calculator, my system (see sig) calls for 917W, just don't tell that to my 750W Decathlon that's currently running it...

[NoctisReitop]

So you have no trouble running yours? You've used some performance utilities to max out the cpu, psu draw, etc.? How'd they turn out?

[One4yu2c]

I've not experience any trouble, a detail I would have surely mentioned if the opposite had been the case. And that's to be expected, as we've been explaining above, it takes a rare system to push these high wattage behemoths. In all reality, you'd be able to run your proposed specs on a quality 550-600W power supply, though I wouldn't recommend it (for the sake of future upgrades).

[okron1k]

something i noticed.. you put quad cpu.. not quad core.

quad core is a single cpu. right underneath the selection it says dualcore counts as a single cpu.

try doing it again as a single cpu and then choose your processor

i just made a dream system on there with 2 8800 ultras, fastest core 2 quad. 2 dvd burners.. 3 hard drives. a sound card and a 56k modem. 2gb ram. 4 led fans. high end mobo. 100% tdp 100%utilization.. and it showed me 634w

[One4yu2c]

Originally Posted by okron1k

something i noticed.. you put quad cpu.. not quad core.

quad core is a single cpu. right underneath the selection it says dualcore counts as a single cpu.

Great catch! After changing the processor selection, it spit out a much more reasonable 527W for the specs in my sig.

[okron1k]

to be honest i didn't even know they made high end quad cpu intel motherboards.. or i'd be all over it! can you say... 16 core?