The Official OC (OverClocking) Thread!

Depends which Thermaltake. The older basic ones were very poor, the recent ones are better but still mediocre, the Toughpowers are excellent, but that's because they use CWT OEMs, the same as the Corsair TX units, but they're much louder as Thermaltake used a very aggressive fan controller.

 

LOL, I suppose they better be with a name like that
This is my old one here
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153023
Price is looking pretty good! Sorry about some peoples luck, but it worked SUPER for me!

 

Sam,
I know that the first Thermaltake W0093RU 500W ATX 12V Passive PFC I bought was abnormally loud, mainly because of that piece of Lexan plastic, that blocked about 1/3 of the fan. One of those brilliant ideas, that didn't quite work that good in the real world! LOL!! The Version 2.0, that replaced it is still super quiet, after 3 years of hard use. A little low on the 2 12v rails at 14 & 15A, but it does run cool and quiet, especially since there's no AC. In the summer when it's 110F+ outside, it's about 85F/34C in the front of the house, and the CPU almost never get's over 37-38C. Right now it's 84F/28C in there, and it's running at 32-33C and has been on since about 8 AM (2:35 PM now)! Both it and the CM in mine are always very quiet. When I get a Phenom II for it, I'll change to a better, higher wattage PSU though! LOL!!

I'm not sure I understand how you came up with those figures? for the CMs. Unless the Nexus is under-rated to begin with, I see no way that it can handle a 430w load, with a maximum theoretical capacity of 430w!

Russ

 

There's nothing wrong with the PSU per se, but it's really a 250W PSU with a 430W label slapped on it.
Russ: The Nexus handled a 430W stress test admirably, because it's a genuine 430W PSU. The actual max output of that CM460 is 2/3 of the Nexus by specs.

 

Sam,
What I'm asking is how you came up with that 250w figure! I don't agree at all with your findings on the Nexus, because in order to do that it would have to be 100% efficient, and that's just not possible, unless in reality the PSU is able to produce more than 430w with no appreciable load on it!

Russ

 

What? Efficiency is DC output \ efficiency. i.e. a 500W PSU that's 80% efficient doesn't make it 400W, it means it draws 625W producing 500W. For someone that modified the house electrics to improve the voltage, I'm amazed you didn't know that, if I'm honest.

 

ahh. SO, since the *THERMALTAKE* PSU is 65% efficient, at max load, its drawing 430W AC while outputting 280W DC at max load. Is this correct? And then i'll shut up LOL!

 

No, it's wrong, which is why I'm surprised it's what Russ believes.

The reason I under-rate these PSUs is because despite the fact that they claim they can produce 430W, realistically it's very unlikely that they can, since they are actually lower rated PSUs with a different number slapped on them. A good brand PSU like a Nexus, though still rated 430W CAN produce 430W DC. Contrastingly, a really bad brand like Rosewill or Raidmax won't even manage 300W even if rated 700W. This does not mean it is only 43% efficient, it means it is simply a bad PSU. The same applies for the Tt and CM units, but to a lesser extent, and unlike the Rosewill and Raidmax units, Thermaltakes and Coolermasters are unlikely to go bang if overstressed, they'll just shut down or become unstable.

 

Wow, PSU's are beginning to intimidate me LOL! I think that might be the manufacturers plan. Slap a BOLD number on it, and hope it attracts some attention, MORE OR LESS!

Well...perhaps some of you will find this interesting.
http://www.motherboards.org/articles/guides/1487_7.html

 

Some examples:

Corsair CX 400W: 360W 12V (90%)
Coolermaster Extreme 460W: 312W 12V (68%) Estimated actual rating 345W
Thermaltake 430W: 216W 12V (50%) Estimated actual rating 240W

Corsair TX 750W: 720W 12V (96%)
Coolermaster R.P.P. 750W: 648W 12V (86%) Estimated actual rating 675W
Tt Toughpower 750W: Max 12V unspecified



Don't be intimidated by PSUs. Just don't buy halfway-house brands like Coolermaster and Thermaltake for powerful systems.
People like Russ get away with these just fine as they don't use them to run powerful gaming systems. Despite using a 7750BE, Russ' system is unlikely to draw more than 120W or so at full load because of the graphics card he uses, so it doesn't matter even if his CM unit can only produce 250W, it'd still power his system twice over.

Your system on the other hand actually needs a reasonable amount of stable power, which is why you should pay more to get a decent PSU like a Corsair, Seasonic, Antec (within reason), Nexus or Silverstone.

That efficiency graph mirrors that of any PSU. Use next to no power and any PSU is really inefficient. Max one out and it also becomes less efficient, but not to the same extent.

The efficiency only drops to 71% at full load on that PSU because it is a very bad brand, Ultra. My Zalman for instance, even when drawing the full 850W, only drops to 78-79%.

 

Sam,
I know that, but you guys had been discussing using the Killa A Watt earlier for measuring wattage, and I honestly believed you were going by that! My Bad! You had me scratching my head as to how you could measure the efficiency of the DC output that way! ROFL!! I have seen custom wattage meters that go in between the PSU and whatever the PSU is powering. I saw one at NASA at the Kennedy Space Center once, that was pretty elaborate when they were working on the computers for the Apollo missions. All the outputs from the PSU plugged into it, and then you plugged it's lines into the various places and components in the computer to measure the wattage. Knowing the Government, it probably cost half a million dollars to build! ROFLMSOAO!!

With the house electrics, the load is still there, it's just applied to the the Boost transformer the line is powered by! Raising the output voltage, just negates the effects of lower than normal voltage at the computer mains themselves, allowing the computer to run at supply line voltages as low a 92-93v and still have enough voltage for the computer to run normally and not shut down or reset when the voltage is real low!

Russ

 

I wont be cheap on PSU's anymore! In the future I will do MUCH more homework before purchasing!

On another note, I'd like to try a different CPU stress test. Please dont suggest Orthos, because it seems to only support dual core. and when I tried a second instance, it simply added it to the same Cores that were already Stressed. Is prime 95 simply my best bet? Should I wait anyway, since windows 7RC is released tuesday!

 

IntelBurnTest and OCCT are hardcore stress tests. They'll run your CPU hot as hell, but they're a reasonable indicator of performance. Both should be run for a significant period of time though.

 

Hmmmm. I assumed given its name, Intelburntest wouldnt work with an amd. LOL, Guess I shouldn't assume. I'll try both of those. Thanks.

 

It's only Linpack. I think it works with any CPU.

 

Oman7,
Linpack works with any CPU as far as I know. I've used it on AMDs in the past without any issues. Works fine on mine!

Russ

 

Linpack should work with any cpu, just make sure to keep an eye on the temps because they will get pretty high. From my experience it was at least 10C higher then anything else I've ever run even with a higher OC.

Sam,

In one post you said Tt Toughpower's were okay/good psu's but left them off the list for high end systems. Should I take that as an indication that for my next build a better would be a good idea?

 

Not at all, Toughpowers are still good PSUs. I don't list them as recommended because they get very noisy very quickly in a demanding system, and I don't mean not silent, I mean really noisy.

 

Just to stir things up a bit. The RS-460 has two 12v-18A rails and 12 X 18= 216 watts and since there is only a total of 312W for both rails 432W doesn't add up. Now if we took 15A X 12V we would get 180W on each rail and that times 2 would come to 360W or exactly the amount of watts available on the RS-500. So one could extrapolate that the RS-460 produces less than 15A per rail and that the RS-500 just makes it to 15A over two rails. Now look at the corsair single 12v rail unit rated for 60A and you will see that it actually comes close to its rated output. The rails on the CoolerMasters' individually can hit their rated 18A but not across both rails at the same time.

 

Soph: That is indeed sometimes how the wattage works, depending on how the PSU is wired inside. Sometimes the reason for two separate limits is the limitation of the master output, and secondary regulation stages. Two of the six 12V rails on the ZM850-HP for instance have a higher rating than the rest.
A lot of "multi-rail" PSUs such as the Tt Toughpower, however, are single rail PSUs with four wires coming out of the same solder joint. The Toughpower 750W is indeed a 60A 12V rail just like the TX750, claiming to be 4 16A rails (which I see they've now changed to 18, even though the unit hasn't been changed electrically)