Does the PCIe connector (or 20->24 pin PSU adapter) really matter?

Nosferatu

I'm debating weather to buy the SeaSonic S12-430 or the S12-500. I don't really need 500w and i'm looking for something quiet and cool (temperature-wise). Right now I use a ZM400B-APS and love it because it's so quiet and runs pretty cool. I'm going to be upgrading from my specs below to an Athlon64 (venice), A8N-SLI Premium, EVGA GeForce 6800GT, SB Audigy2 and I might get a 74GB SATA WD Raptor 10,000rpm drive to install my games on.

Now to my question, is the PCIe adapter available on the 500w version of the SeaSonic PSU really worth it? I'm fairly sure my graphics card includes an adapter cable... so would I be better off just going with the 430w model? My computer room is very hot already (ranges from 76F-84F) so I don't want to get overkill, especially when the 400W has been powering what I have right now with no issues. I'm pretty sure I tend to over estimate the wattage i'd need from a PSU, or I used to.

Also, what about the 20->24 pin PSU adapters? This would save me from having to buy another power supply.. which would be nice to say the least. I've read arguments on both side of the issues. Some saying it's safe to use these adapters, others saying it's only safe if you buy a PSU that has a 24-pin connector. What's the general consensus around here on these adapters?


Does anyone else have a better PSU they would recommend?

I'm looking for something that is quiet, cool, efficient, and stable for OC'ing. Also, if it has LED's on the fan, it's out of the question.

Thanks in advance!

lemonlime

I heard a lot of talk about the 24-pin adapters when I was looking to buy my DFI Ultra-D. The standard is supposed to be backwards-compatible. You technically do not even need to buy an adapter cable, just plug the 20-pin into the ATX-24pin connector. Four holes will be left unfilled, and it'll only plug in one way. I used an Antec 430 20-pin on my 24-pin board without any issues at all.

In your situation, since you are going to be getting a new PSU, I would recommend springing for the 24-pin. Although it may be a bit more expensive, you'll have a PSU designed for the ATX 2.0 standard. You'll also get SATA hard drive power connectors etc.

I wouldn't worry too much about heat. I could be wrong about this, someone correct me if I am: Smaller PSUs, with little load headroom will produce more heat than a larger PSU that has ample headroom avaliable.

Nosferatu

Well, the only reason I was looking to buy a new PSU was because of all the talk about the 20->24 pin adapters being problematic (as with simply plugging in the 20 pin and leaving the 4 unused).

I'm also thinking about a couple small drives (80GB or less) to setup in RAID-0 exclusively for gaming. I'd love everything to be installed on there but i'm nervous about using RAID-0 because I don't want to lose important data if one of the HD's fails. I could buy another Maxtor 200GB SATA instead and set that up in RAID-0, then buy another small drive for weekly backups of really important things (or better yet, just use a DVD-RW disc). Are you worried about losing important data on your RAID setup lemonlime? Do you do regular backups or just weigh the benefit against the risk?

Preacher

I don't remember my PCI-E eVGA 6800GT having an adapter for the PCI-E power input, but I may have missed it.

ASUS motherboards are reknowned for their stability and reliability. You could always try your current PSU or another one and test for problems. I was upgrading anyways and always wanted a PC Power and Cooling, so I dropped the coin and went with it. However, I know many people who are doing fine with non-SLI or less well known PSUs. It really can be a crap shoot though...

As for RAID, I used to have 2 WD Raptors in a RAID-0 array. After reading numerous articles at Maximum PC and Anandtech about RAID-0 having little to no appreciable benefit on game installation, loading, or performance, I broke up the array on my yearly XP reinstall. I couldn't tell a difference. Then again...I don't use my computer for video/audio editing, etc. The increase in stability, reliability, etc is worth more to me.

Omega65

PCPerspective SeaSonic S12-600 review

Seasonic continues to expand their ATX form factor power supply lineup and today we have one of the new S12 series (Silent 12cm fan series) units up for review. The S12-600 is rated for up to 600 continuous watts output and complies with the latest ATX12V v2.0 specification.


Conclusions

Overall, the new Seasonic S12-600 power supply produced very good results. The unit exhibited good voltage regulation with excellent stability and offers a lot of capacity on the +3.3V, +5V and dual +12V rails. The S12-600 is very quiet even when operating under a moderately heavy load and runs cooler than most.

The S12-600 uses active power factor correction and produced one of the highest overall efficiencies I have measured to date. Seasonic is to be congratulated for developing a line of power supplies that are both environmentally friendly (active PFC) and highly efficient (>80%).

On the down side, the main output voltages were a bit low when using the 24-pin to 20-pin ATX adapter cable. Even so, all measured voltages were still within the required ATX12V specified tolerances.

One feature that may appeal to some is the cable management kit labeled Dr. Cable. The included cable ties are a welcome addition, which I use regularly. The spiral wrap on the other hand just doesn’t work for me – I prefer the more elegant, but harder to install nylon web looming material. Spiral wrap is easy to apply but the finished result is not as clean.

Tex

I use a $10 24 to 20 pin adapter that also inlcudes a 4pin to 8 pin for all my dual cpu server boards, both dual opteron and dual xeon as well as my DFL Ultra4 with AMD 64 3400+ and never had any problems. Just make sure your atx psu has decent amps on the 12 volt line.

Tex

mmonnin

I used an adapter and got the exact same voltages across the board on my DFI SLI-DR with out w/o the adapter.

Tex

I was more implying he didnt need a new 24 pin eps psu. My server boards don't work without an adapter.

Tex

Mt_Goat

I think as long as you have at least 30A on the 12V line and at least 35A on each the 3.3V and 5V lines you should be OK. The vid card and if you plan on OC'ing will be the deciding factors on how well things work. If you have ANY PLANS AT ALL ON RUNNING SLI I would recomend getting the best PSU you can afford period!

lemonlime

Nosferatu, last month, my Raid-0 did indeed crash. I lost all of my data on the stripeset, thanks to a faulty raptor. Thankfully, all I lost was my operating system, and some games etc. I am very careful to save all of my important data to a storage drive that I have, and I do regular ghosts of my raid partition.

There is always a risk involved in Raid-0, but so long as you have a storage drive, and backup regularly to DVDR or CDR, and don't keep 'all your eggs in one striped basket' you should be okay.

entropy

I want this sucker for my next computer: http://www.3dcool.com/Details.asp?cid=288&id=665

Silenx makes some awesome stuff from the looks of it. I'm not sure if you're set on which brand(s) you want, but I just thought I'd throw that out there, because you mentioned it being quite. <14 dB is pretty damn quiet

The rails are pretty damn stable, too. This is from a review here:

SilenX 600w iXtrema PSU results:

Idle using Fluke
3.3v = 3.34
5.0v = 5.06
12v = 12.36

Load using Fluke
3.3v = 3.34
5.0v = 5.04
12v = 12.25

Reading in BIOS
3.28v
4.96v
12.03v

Ok after looking closely at these readings I can say with some certainty that the MSI BIOS readings must be inacurate. My Fluke multimeter is high quality and recently calibrated so I would say the multimeter is more acurate than the bios readings.

Just thought I'd throw out another option if you aren't set yet

Mt_Goat

I still don't know why more folks haven't tried these SUPER FLOWER 550W PLUG-N 14CM MODULAR BTX POWER SUPPLY's. I have owned so many different PSU's and this is the second best I have ever had behind my PC P&C 510 SLI. It holds rails just as good and it is actually rated at "over 600W" peak power. I simply blows away any and all Antec PSU's I have ever had at any price.

Also, when I first got my DFI NF4 Ultra-D I used an Antec True 480 and no adapter like lemonlime did with no real problems. I did make sure to plug a molex into the board and use the boards floppy connector.

Nosferatu

I'm not set on any brands yet. I definitely like how quiet and tight that SilenX PSU is, but it's pretty dang expensive. Especially when I have 3 other PSU's waiting to be sold.

That Super Flower also looks good, I think a modular PSU is a very big plus... and you can't beat the price. The killer for that is the LED lights though. Is there any quick and simple way to disable them? How easy are fans to replace in PSU's usually?

Thanks for the suggestions!

mmonnin

Tex, I was just putting that out there for him to know that my voltages didnt change with the adapter on. I actually didnt even read your post.

Mt_Goat

Nosferatu wrote:

.....The killer for that is the LED lights though. Is there any quick and simple way to disable them?...

Some short snippers and a simple snip snip will kill the LED's real quick and easy without taking it apart and voiding the warranty.

Oh yea, it is super quiet and it will run after the computer is shut down if it is is still hot.

Nosferatu

Thanks for the replies and recommendations everyone. I've been trying to decide on a new PSU (ATXV2.1) as I think that's the route I will go. I'm leaning towards the SeaSonic S12-500 as it has pretty much everything I want, and no LCD. The only drawback I can see is the price (~$123) and the voltages aren't as tight as some other PSU's. I'm not sure if I should be worried about this, but I would like to OC the A64 3200+ Venice and hopefully hit 2.6GHz - 2.8GHz.

The other PSU's that i'm now considering are the:

- PC P&C Silencer 470
- Cooler Master RS-550-ACLY 550W Real Power (but I really hate LED fans)
- OCZ OCZ520ADJ PowerStream 520W Power Supply (again, stupid LED fans)
- OCZ OCZ52012U ModStream 520W (I'm worried the modular design will hurt stable votages)
- Super Flower 550W Plug-N 14cm Modular BTX (again, modular design)
- ENERMAX Noisetaker AX Series EG495AX-VE 485W (concerned about Zap/Buzzing noises)
- ENERMAX EG565AX-VEFMA2.0-SLI 535W (same concerns)

I already have an Asus A8N-SLI Premium on it's way. I was looking at the DFI SLI-DR but I decided on the A8N-SLI Premium because I have an A7N8X Deluxe (Rev. 2.0) right now, not the "-E" version... but the older one with nForce2 SoundStorm. I really like this board, and SoundStorm even more... it's a shame NVIDIA isn't pursuing it (at least onboard) anymore. I had to go out and pick up an Audigy2, now I have to use Creative's drivers... ick.. I hope they've gotten leaner in the past few years.

Does anyone have any final recommendations on the list above, or similar PSU's? It's going to be powering:

- A8N-SLI Premium
- A64 3200+ Venice (OC'ed)
- SB Audigy2
- GeForce 6800GT PCI-E
- 6 USB / 1 Firewire
- 200GB SATA 7200rpm
- 2x512MB Corsair PC3200 LL (it will likely be 4x512MB or 2x512MB+1x1GB in the future)
- DVD Burner
- 5 fans including the one on the CPU's heatsink

What's the lowest PSU I could get away with here? 470w? My top concerns are noise, heat and OC'ing ability. Oh, and of course price. I don't really want to spend over $130 if I can get away with it.

Thanks in advance!

mmonnin

The OCZ modstream modded parts wont affect the power. But the OCZ powerstream is a better PSU but it doesnt have the advantages of the modstream.

I would use any of those PSUs in my systems except for the coolermaster. The others are well known for quality power supplies.

Nosferatu

Alright, cool. I'll take that out of my list. Do you think 470w should be enough for the future when I add another gig of RAM and OC the processor? Is PC P&C just spreading FUD about modular PSU's because they don't offer them (yet)?

http://www.pcpowercooling.com/technology/myths/

I've never read anything bad about modular designs, but I have wondered if it would hurt anything... I don't have a lot of knowledge dealing with electricity, just some very basic concepts so I wasn't sure.

Omega65

Dont Skimp on the PSU! It's the bedrock your systems sits on. Many failures attributed to other parts are in fact caused by weak PSUs

You dont want a Weak PSU causing your Expensive motherboard to blow do you?!?

lemonlime

I would take PCP&C's blurb there with a grain of salt. That may be more important when you are talking about servers and very high drain devices, but for every day computing, I'm sure modular is fine.

I used to snip all of the unused leads in my PSUs. Thats one way to keep the case clean I suppose

Nosferatu

@Omega65, yeah I know. I'd never skimp on a PSU (getting a crappy brand or PSU because it's cheap). I've finally decided on the SeaSonic S12-600 because it's SLi Certified and i'm thinking about using SLi with Dual 6800GT's down the road along with an X2. Hopefully since this PSU has so many features i'll be able to keep it for many years to come.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and advice.

mmonnin

I heard they are rethinking the SLI-certified thing. I dont think some of the PSUs that have it now are going to keep it. Heck some of the newer GPUs take more power than the CPUs at stock speeds.