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A Kilowatt of Power
An anonymous reader writes "There is finally a review available of a kilowatt power supply. The PC Power and Cooling 1KW produces 1000W of power output with 1100W peak. The review points out how great this product did in the testing but was not afraid to admit how much of an overkill it is for the enthusiast market. From the article, 'In the current computing world, where more always equals "better than" the 1KW is king.'"
1KW? Pfffft, and you think thats Ub3r 133t? Check out my super-duper(tm) Cisco Systems 4200 WACV 4.2KW powerhouse. This baby whoups any powersupply anyday, anywheres, anytime.
> was not afraid to admit how much of an overkill it is for the enthusiast market.
Nothing is overkill for a true enthusiast.
(You should see my friend's stereo speakers.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I've got a 1.21 Jigawatt power supply. Powered by some plutonium I stole from some terrorists in a VW bus down at the twin pines mall.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I thought this was Slashdot, not GHZWATTMBCIRCLEJERK.
You obviously have not seen my flux capacitor
The toad can't burp - and for some reason can't fart either, so it swells up and eventually explodes. --Anonymous Coward
"In the quest for maximum PC performance, you cannot have too much of a good thing. The enthusiasts have shown us that two video cards are better than one, as are two hard drives, and faster is always better."
Preposterous!
The next thing they'll be telling us is that it's better to have $1000.00 than $100.00, vehicles with better gas mileage will save money, doctors make more money than fry cooks, and Linux is better than Windows.
A PSU that can run two high end computers. Its funny but very intresting if it can do this without a problem.
Just imagine how many neon lights and LEDs you could power in your modded case with that thing! It'd be like the sun!
Everyone knows, for every sticker or light-effect you add to your case, it's an honorary +50Mhz boost!
Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves? -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
We get a 1.21 gigawatt power supply.
> For a consumer power supply, this thing is insane. I mean, there are certainly applications for it with today's use of RAID arrays, SLI video cards and Pentium 4 processors
Also good for arc welding, starting cars with dead batteries, electrifying the fence around your ranch, firing your railgun, and giving yourself electroshock therapy to prevent you from buying another one in the future.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I just rounded few PEAK consumption figures.
125 wats x2 for the GFX cards.
100 Wats x4 for the fastest dualcore opterons.
15 wats x 10 for the 15krpm SCSI:s.
10 wats x 16 for ram.
Soundcard,chipset,network, DVD writer. 40 wats total.
1000 wats total,
TYAN thunder K8QW is the motherboard where everything fits.
Sure 1kw is overkill for with mass market enthuastics but don't underestimate the needs of the rich.
So 8 cores and 32GB of ram, and large SCSI raid array and two fastest GFX cards, it might be overkill but its most certainly the fastest system, for everyday linux desktop usage, with a multithreaded app.
Sure the system is not cheap, but there are multiple situations where such "desktop" system would be warranted.
One is with a 100k$ per user workstation application use by 100k$ per year employee, another is when you have millions and don't care about the price.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
The power supply does not deliver 1000w all the time. 1000w with 1100w peak means that the PSU is rated to deliver up to 1Kw constantly and up to 1,1Kw for brief periods; but the PSU will deliver only the power that it's requested from them.
Switching PSUs waste some power, of course, but are among the most efficient types of electrical power supplies available - that's what make them so well suited for computers.
I've been wanting to overclock my 4800 dual core to 19200. This should be a big help. The liquid Helium is a bit hard to work with but worth it.
No, sir, the power supply is a switcher, not a linear power supply. All computer power supplies are. They do not operate by continuously wasting power - instead they transform the line power into the desired voltage and current at around 88% efficiency (depending on the model) all the way from a minimal load to a full load. In fact, for a normal load, this power supply won't draw any more wall current than a 300 watt supply - but it will be able to draw a lot more if it needs to, without failing, if its claims are true.
Disclaimer: IANAL. This post is, however, legal advice, and creates an attorney-client relationship.
A few days ago, I installed a Thermaltake TWV-480 in one of my machines. This is a power supply that inclues a front bay panel with an LCD display telling you how many watts of power are currently being used. The machine is a Pentium 4 2.4ghz with a Radeon 9600 Pro, a CD burner, four hard drives and several USB devices.
Since installing the panel, the machine idles around 50 watts or so, spikes up to perhaps 55 if I turn up the fan speeds (which is rarely necessary), and maybe 60-75 or so for a few brief moments when I'm doing something that requires heavy disk access like openning a large file (or group of files).
I can't possibly imagine that newer, more powerful hardware would consume a full two orders of magnitude more power than this machine, especially given the great work we've all heard being done recently in heat and power efficiency with AMD's newer chips Cool 'n' Quiet tech and Intels Pentium Ms. So given that, who needs this much power?
I hope you and everyone else reasises that it only draws 1kw if the total system load is 1kw. A powerful setup might burn 500W and thats about it.
"Benchmark 2006: How many drums of oil does your computer burn a year?"
I agree. While 1kw is a gimic really, I would like to see power consumption come down. My whole home has those compact flourescent light bulbs so right now my computer is the biggest power draw in the house. If I left most of the major lights on (about 18 bulbs) the draw would be only 250W.
Most computer power supplies are crap. In the race to the bottom to get the lowest cost, quality and performance were the casualties. In previous power supply roundups and shootouts, a number of products didn't deliver rated faceplate performance. Some smoked. Forget thousand watt power supplies. Most general purpose computers need a reliable power supply that meets it's published specs at 350 watts.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
> around 88% efficiency (depending on the model)
If you read some real powersupply reviews (where the majority is real data, not press photos) on X-bit labs such as this one or this one you see that normal PSUs are more like 70-80% efficient in their good range, with only one hitting 90% efficiency. The problem with switcher PSUs is that below a certain power draw their efficiency drops off significantly. For these units it's around 100w. It'll be interesting if X-bit does a review of this unit to see what its efficiency curve looks like.
Only on Slashdot does a larger power supply make people think of porn...
Not with Pentium 4. There is no standard OEM MB out there to carry the number of Pentium 4s to get that far. And the special ones are actually designed together with a power supply and a case.
In fact there is just a single "standard" MB I can think of to use with this beast.
It is the Assus 8 Opteron MB which has 4 CPUs on board and 4 CPUs on a daughther card. If we assume normal Opteron and throw in some video, cooling and disks in you end up having a 700W+ maximum power consumption.
If someone can think of something else to generate that much power without coming with a dedicated power supply - post it. I can't.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Also good for arc welding, starting cars with dead batteries, electrifying the fence around your ranch, firing your railgun, and giving yourself electroshock therapy to prevent you from buying another one in the future.
So for the really multifunctional PC that is. Finally beyond the realm of computing!
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
I want everyone to realise what efficency means. Simply put it means that if a powersupply is 90% efficent and you are drawing 90 watts on its output, you would be drawing 100W on the input. This is because of the 10% loss during the conversion, hence 90% efficiency. I guess you dont know the difference between a switcher and a linear. A power supply does indeed waste power but thats a given. Nothing is 100% efficent. There is an idle current so to speak but usually very very small. A power supply only draws what the load demands plus its own internal loss.
The switcher immediatly converts the ac line current to dc and takes the ripple out using 2 or 3 big fat capacitors. Thats why it sparks when you plug a cold switcher in, the caps charge up. The dc then feeds a transistor which is controlled by an oscillator and produces a 20+ KHz square wave. This feeds some high frequency transformers that kick the power down to the necessary voltages like 3.3, 5, and 12 volts. Each voltage gets its own transformer, more caps to filter out the high frequency and then to regulators for each voltage. Thats the benefit of a switcher, light weight and compact for the power it converts(although more complex and only a 70-80% efficiency). On a side note: If you ever wonderd why aircraft use 400Hz power here is your answer, smaller and lighter power systems.
A linear would take the 120/240v line power at 60/50HZ and put it strait through a big fat transformer made for 50/60 hz and lower it to 3.3, 5 and 12 volts then each to a set of smoothing caps and regulators. A 1 kw linear would weigh oh id guess 20-30 pounds! The higher the frequency, the less turns of wire and smaller core a transformer requires. Plus it would be more efficent then a switcher.
Each of those power supplies have there respective efficiencies but in no way does the linear waste it as you imply. Please if you dont know what you are talking about then dont post misinformation.
HA! ...over-consumation...
Over-sexing mother earth? Impossible!
-bZj
.sig
...you turn your computer _off_!?
1kW is a joke. Wake me up when they announce that a computer with at least as much processing power as today's top of the line runs on 1mW of power (yes, one MILLIwatt). Boasting about 1kW is like boasting that your car gets 1mile to the gallon.
I think it's time to make computers less power-hungry. I have a 1300 MHz Duron with an nVidia geForce 5700 and two harddisks. That thing uses 145 W when it's doing nothing, and that is without the monitor. I use less power to light all the rooms in my, admittedly small, house! Even my big wide-screen CRT TV doesn't use that much power when it's on. I can't believe we can't do better. With better, I mean make computers that use less power.
-- Cheers!
You don't have a refrigerator ?
That's typically the biggest power draw by far in any house (unless your computer is an IBM system/370).
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
I agree. While 1kw is a gimic really, I would like to see power consumption come down. My whole home has those compact flourescent light bulbs so right now my computer is the biggest power draw in the house.
It's not as gimmicky as it might seem. I sincerely HOPE nobody's desktop system actually draws a Kw, that's not the whole story. The closer a supply's output is to it's max rating, the more ripple there is and the more the voltages tend to sag. It also means the internal parts in the P/S will be running close to their max heat rating.
So, a power supply that never sees more than 50% of it's rated load will run cool and very stable and will have a long service life. Looking at the green aspects, this P/S won't end up taking space in a landfill next year.
The question is, compared to what? 75% efficient is great if the alternative is only 50%, which is what linear power supplies average. Linear supplies are simpler, but also bigger and heavier. The sheer mass of metal required can quickly make the simplicity moot, as the cost of the metal drives the price high.
Driving the frequency even higher can increase efficiency, but I believe it increases engineering complexities and strain on the components.
I don't read AC A human right
Equipment:
Brain and / or calculator.
Method:
Visit the manufacturers homepage for each item you want to build into your system, find the technical specifications for that item, then find the specification for the maximum power draw for that item.
Write that figure down, then repeat the process for each of the other system components. When you have data for all the devices, add them together to produce a total.
Result:
Buy a PSU that covers that total figure in normal usage.
Next week we will be covering another difficult subject - Wearing trousers ~ How not to fall over while putting them on.
Todays program was brought to you by the letters D,U,H !
I'm surprised no one has mentioned that some of the newest dual-core Power Mac G5s run a 1 kW power supply STOCK. I thought it was insane when I first found out about it.
I'm on top of my game like I'm standin' on Xbox.
I seem to remember the same arguments from a few months back:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/ 22/2157244&tid=232&tid=126
And, since IAAPSD (I am a power supply designer), the same observations are applicable:
Does a power supply necessarily use it's rated power output all the time, or is that just the rated maximum wattage output?
Of course it does! That is why you must never, ever power up a PSU with nothing connected to it. If you did, that whole 1kW would have to be dissipated in the PSU leading to instant meltdown and you having to pick pieces of red hot metal out of your face.
It's the same with power plants - if demand for power suddenly dropped far enough, every power plant in the country would explode with untapped potential.
I think it was rather irresponsible of you to raise such a dangerous subject on Slashdot. Please report to your nearest DHS reception centre for re-conditioning.
This supply is not burning 1 kW all the time it sits there. It is providing exactly the same amount of power as your current power supply does. The only thing that it offers you is more headroom if you suddenly need to use your USB arc-welder.
And with efficiencies of close to 90%, these types of switching power supplies don't heat your room up when they run. Your processor and video card do, though.
Well, the difference is that none of those things run _continuously_ like a computer does. The fridge only runs about 10-30% of the time. The hairdryer, microwave oven, and so on run for a few minutes / day. A really power-hungry computer can jack up your electric bill pretty fast. If you use up 1kW on average, that's a $100/month electric bill.
A 1KW power supply is not king, it's the worst possible example of waste and the most ineligant solution.
A computer system that can perform at currently accepted levels and needs less power is king. Show me an AMD64-class CPU running at 3GHz with a terabyte of storage operating at 100W or less and I'll be impressed. It takes no magic to throw more hardware/power at a design - that's just brute force.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Let me ask you a question - HOW MUCH MORE OBVIOUS COULD I POSSIBLY HAVE MADE IT?
Do you completely lack a sense of humour, or for that matter even the most basic of social skills?
Dude, this is Slashdot. He probably has Asperger's.
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