Power Supply Roundup: 730W to 900W
by Christoph Katzer on November 22, 2007 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Hiper 4M880 and 5X880 - 880W
The second series of Hiper today comes with a different design and a different internal topology. The 5X includes eight USB ports and an additional port that can support up to 1A while the PC is off. This PSU also comes in a nice, shiny paintjob. Due to the USB ports on the back, the venting holes only occupy the upper section.
The 4M has no USB ports and a has normal black matte coating, but the space where the USB ports would have been located is still closed. Hiper started the idea of keeping the housing open with a mesh a long time ago. This idea has pros and cons since we might have increased problems with EMI and the airflow could also recycle back into the system. During our tests we couldn't answer the EMI question since we lack the proper equipment, but we might be able to help out with the venting issue since we didn't find any negative temperature results with the actual design.
Both units are the same inside and therefore we see the same data on the labels. The first two 12V rails are rated at 18A and the second two rails at 30A. The both 30A rails will be powering the graphics card PEG connectors, which makes sense.
Cables and Connectors
The cable harnesses look nice and sleek, and we see a slightly different harness output from the housing than we have seen before. Hiper doesn't have one big hole where all the cables are pressed through. Instead, the different harnesses are pressed in groups of two to three harnesses through five different openings. The benefit is that it's easier to access the different harnesses when you want to attach a new device since the connectors are not mixed.
The cables are quite short and especially the Molex connectors have a very short length. However, it's clever to make the graphics card connectors of different lengths since the cards always sit on top of each other. There are two harnesses for the graphics cards, each with one 8-pin and one 6-pin connector attached.
The inside of the Hiper unit looks very similar to a well-known manufacturer. We won't name names, as Hiper made many changes to the internal design. There are several smaller heatsinks inside; the secondary heatsink remains as a single unit, while the primary is made up of three smaller heatsinks that cool different components like rectifier bridges and diodes.
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tynopik - Friday, November 23, 2007 - link
the efficiency charts are fantastic as you can see exactly how all the units compare at a specified wattagebut then you go back and do the acoustics charts by % load? why?
if i want to see how all the units compare at a 500w load, there's no easy way to do that as that might be a 68% load on one unit and a 55% load on another unit
Christoph Katzer - Friday, November 23, 2007 - link
Next time will doVidmar - Saturday, November 24, 2007 - link
Thanks for doing the charts in watts instead of load. I've been asking for that for some time. As has been said here it makes it much easier to find a good unit based upon a known wattage your system uses. Good article.tynopik - Friday, November 23, 2007 - link
great!and then once all units are tested to the same baseline, that opens the door for dynamic comparisons
as you build up a database of reviews, you could have a dynamic system where you can choose a 400-500 watt unit you reviewed 9 months ago and a 600 watt unit you just reviewed and it will generate the comparison charts on the fly
something for the future perhaps ;)
Etern205 - Thursday, November 22, 2007 - link
Newegg is selling the Antec TruePower Quattro 850 at $249 whilethe 1KW version is selling for $299 with a -$80 instant rebate!
850w version
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
1KW version
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Traciatim - Thursday, November 22, 2007 - link
Could you please design and test with a machine that actually uses 700+ Watts of DC output?Jjoshua2 - Thursday, November 22, 2007 - link
I like the old review better. I don't have time to read the whole reviews, so I just read the conclusion and then go over a few interesting paragraphs. I hope you have a longer conclusion next time!Thanks.
Christoph Katzer - Friday, November 23, 2007 - link
Ehm there are 8 pages comparison/conclusion.... not enough?Of course people not appreciating the work and just read the last page find it boring... so next time I write a page about 10 PSUs and that'd be enough? ...
Googer - Thursday, November 22, 2007 - link
Check the hot deals section of Anandtech forums, a little while ago I posted a $50 price drop of the Silencer 750 down to a budgetable $150.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...">http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...=40&...
Christoph Katzer - Friday, November 23, 2007 - link
That would be a really good deal indeed.