i need help choosing a PSU

[disturbed13]

anyone else care to post?
there is one thing else that the Thermaltake has on the Antec for close to the same price
the thermaltake has a modular connection system to it

 

[Atomic Rooster]

The Antec TPQ-850 power supply I posted has modular cables. It's listed in the description and the pictures show the separate cables and connections for them on the back of the PSU.

 

[disturbed13]

holy snot it is!
850w! modular!
later Thermaltake
ill be getting that antec

 

[wol-va-rine]

Hmm. . .

Lets see:
Antec 850W
4 - +12V rails @ 18A
+3.3V @ 25A
+5V @ 30A

Thermaltake 700W
4 +12V rails @ 18A
+3.3 @ 30A
+5V @ 28A

It looks to me like Thermaltake "beefed up the other rails that aren't as important, in order to rate it as higher wattage."

I wouldn't call the Antec a waste at all. It has high power, great reliability and is backed by excellent customer service. 150W more than the Thermaltake at the same price sounds like a good deal to me. I haven't known any of the high quality PSU manufacturers to "fudge" it's numbers to get a higher rating.

your post makes no sense, they each have the same amount on the same number of 12v rails, the Antec is 850w and the Thermalake is 700w, simple math tells you which one "beefed up" the less important rails...

 

[Atomic Rooster]

So, which are the "less important" rails and how are they beefed up?

 

[disturbed13]

gentlemen (i guess)
keep it clean

if you look at the specs in the Atomic Roosters post that you quoted
you will see the differeance between those 2 PSUs
and i dont mean the wattage either
compair the +3.3V and the +5V rails
and you will see what he means

 

[wol-va-rine]

So, which are the "less important" rails and how are they beefed up?

the 12v rail is the most important rail, that pretty much makes the 3.3v and 5v rails the "less important" rails, correct...? or am I wrong here...?

this is taken from About.com which pretty much parrots everything I've ever heard about psus and their specific rails...

"+12V Rail

The most important voltage rail in a power supply is the +12V rail. This voltage rail supplies power to the most demanding components including the processor, drives, cooling fans and graphics cards. All of these items draw a lot of current and as a result you want to make sure that you purchase a unit that supplies enough power to the +12V rail.

With the increasing demands on the 12V lines, many new power supplies have multiple 12V rails that will be listed as +12V1, +12V2 and +12V3 depending on if it has two or three rails. When calculating the amps for the +12V line, it is necessary to look at the total amps produces from all of the 12V rails. Often times there might be a footnote that the combine maximum wattage will be less than the total rating of the rails. Just reverse the above formula to get the maximum combined amps.

* Amperage = Wattage / Voltage

here's the link...

About.com: PC power supply wattage

the two psus have the exact same number of 12v rails and the exact same wattage on those rails, care to guess where the extra watts on the Antec come into play...?

gentlemen (i guess)
keep it clean

if you look at the specs in the Atomic Roosters post that you quoted
you will see the differeance between those 2 PSUs
and i dont mean the wattage either
compair the +3.3V and the +5V rails
and you will see what he means

if you have ten 5 dollar bills and I have seven 10 dollar bills, who has more money...?

the Antec has more amps on the 5v rail and the Thermalake has more on the 3.3v rail, thus Antec gets to claim more wattage even though those watts are not as important as the 12v rail...

also, you might want to read this, it's a good (but maybe biased) article about some myths concerning psus, like "it's better to have multiple 12v rails instead of one with a lot of amps", plus, it mentions one of the problems with having a modular psu...

Power Supply Myths Exposed

 

[Atomic Rooster]

Here's a review of the Antec TruePower Quattro (TPQ-850) 850W from JohnnyGURU.com.

Funny, they don't mention anything about "beefed up, unimportant rails".

Have a read through the stickies on this page: PC Power Supply Discussion