Rosewill CAPSTONE-550M Power Supply Review @ Hardware Secrets - Page 3

Tator Tot · #21 07-02-2012

OCP is always a tricky sell. Since some companies didn't do it right (like OCZ & PC Power way back in the day,) thus they left a bad taste in many consumers mouths.

Personally, I say around 35A is the highest you should go for a line. Though, I do appreciate the way BeQuiet does it with the "OC Key."
Being able to swap to a "single rail" design can be incredibly useful for us who do the extreme overclocking side of things.
Though, every day use and even high overclocks on water shouldn't hold back a rail with 35A of power on it; unless someone is trying to run 4 PCIe cables off of that rail.

Stefan Payne · #22 07-02-2012

Quote:

Originally Posted by rafal_iB_PL

And limit OC on your GPUs forcing shutdowns? No, thx. After my experiences with those ultra low OCP set point PSUs - never again.

Yeah that's a problem. So you can say, that single rail is the lazy mans way.
For manufacturers who save money developing the PSU and in production as a cheaper protection IC could be used.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rafal_iB_PL

PSUs in question?

1. HP-600-G14S - 25A line, all Molex and PCI-E connectors on it - good luck with SLI/CF using adapters. Even worse - 700W one has same rail distribution and measly 48W combined more. In fact High Power itself apparently took it as learning experience, because Element Bronze 600W has now two 30A rails instead of 25A ones - IMO much more reasonable. 30 to 40A is perfect - with 30A per GPU you're highly unlikely to trip it, unless you really OC balls to the wall, and even then, you'd have to have 2x GPU card. With 40A - unlikely to shut down even then.

That's a 600W unit with just two +12V rails!
No wonder it would shut down with an SLI/CF setup.

And I don't like dual rail PSUs at all (OK, for a 300-350W it's OK), but for a 400W and up, it should be at least three rails. For a 600W, the PSU should have four rails. Than the 20A/rail wouldn't be a problem...

Quote:

Originally Posted by rafal_iB_PL

2. Epsilon Bronze 600W - quad rail, 18A for GPUs - enjoy your 680/7970 shutdowns after OC. I've had enough people on forums whining that they need a bigger PSU than their 600W OCZ SXS 2 (Epsilon based), because their computer shuts down in Furmark and in more demanding games with cards like 480 or unlocked 6950. Their first conclusion? "600W not enough, buy 700W quick!11!11!1!!!1!"

How was the rail distribution of that unti? Was it EPS12V like?? So 2 rails for the CPU? And did have the PCIe connectors two rails??

Zap · #23 07-02-2012

There have been numerous 15% and 20% off coupons for the Capstone PSUs lately. The non-modular 450W has been as low as $52 shipped after coupon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonnyGURU

Either in the form of a wire pinched during assembly or someone plugging a connector in upside down. The biggest culprit is the floppy power connector. It's so easy to plug those in upside down on PCI cards like the Sound Blaster.

I have my own story about this.

Way BITD... I had a SCSI Panasonic 4x8 CD burner that had a tiny 20mm fan on the back of it. After time, the fan started rattling. I got tired of it rattling, so I would unplug the drive, and only plug it in when I needed to use it. Got to the point where I would do this while the machine was running - worked just fine! Well, after all the plugging/unplugging, the plug/socket got kind of loose. One time I accidentally plugged it (normal peripheral, AKA Molex™) in upside down!

My computer shut off. It would no longer turn back on even after I unplugged the drive.

I let the computer sit for a few minutes, and it turned back on just fine. And the drive worked fine too, once it was plugged in properly!

The PSU was a Leadman Powmax.

I think it was an LP-6100D like this one.