PCPnC 850W SSI - First Impressions - 56K Beware
I had been looking to upgrade one of my PS's for a number of weeks now. Had looked at 5 different supplies, queried manufacturers, and pondered the choices. First inclination was the PCPnC 510 SLI, but it was borderline at best for my long term needs. Looked at a couple 600W to 700W supplies, but they either had problems or I couldn't get the kind of detailed info I needed about them. Finally had to bite the bullet and pull the trigger. What follows is NOT a review or official test, too many other things going on to do a complete one atm. Only set aside time for first impressions, pics, a spattering of bench data, some IDCs, and JfGnG's about the supply. Have only gotten to poke, prod, and smack it around for a handful of nights now, but here's the info and a first impression of the new PC Power and Cooling 850W SSI power supply starting with it's arrival:
Arrival - UPS delivers
Even though the PS itself is built like a tank, PCPnC shipped the unit in a nice oversized sturdy box. Just for GnGs, here's a pic that shows just how sturdy the box is :lol:
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For reference, there's a 6'1" 180+ pound nut case bouncing on the balls of those big grey things in the pic (but not so looney that I didn't take the PS out before I tried this :p: hehe )
As anyone with a digicam knows, one of the first things one does is take pics... you know, for insurance purposes ;) Here's a small collage of them:
Top center is the PS with the cables layed out. Lower left shows the size of the PS compared to its little brother, a PCPnC Turbo-Cool 450W PS. Center bottom is the obligatory markings pic. Bottom right shows the cable mass exiting the PS.
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Notice that the supply comes standard with an 8-pin ATX12V connector for dual-CPU MBs. The 8-pin to 4-pin adapter cable shown is optional, allowing its use with single or dual CPU MBs.
PCPnC includes the requisite 4 mounting screws and AC cord. An additional, minor feature I liked, which was missing from the 450ATX, is a power switch on the back of the unit... keeps one from having to unplug the AC cord to remove power during component changes :)
Power output ratings and details
As has become standard with PCPnC supplies, the unit is of industrial grade quality and rated at its full power output at 50C. Speaking of power ratings, here they are:
Total continuous output power : 850W
Total peak output power : 950W
+5V @ 30A and +3.3V @ 30A
Four 12V rails @ 17A each
+5V Standby @ 2.0A, -12V @ 0.8A
I had queried PCPnC on quite a number of things before purchasing the supply, one of which is the allocation of the 12V rails. Here's the breakdown:
They've allotted one rail (12V@17A) for supplying the two PCIe Graphics Card cables. Considering the current spec allows only 6.25A per card, there's a nice 32% margin here :)
One of the 12V rails is dedicated to supplying power for HDs, fans, and miscellaneous 12V power requirements. As a point of reference, that's only 1A less than the 450ATX put out for everything.
It's designed for supplying power to multiple CPU MB's, as evidenced by the 8-pin 12VATX cnx and 34A rating, which is where the other two 12V rails are allocated. The 8-to-4 pin adapter cable shown in the pics previously joins the two 12V 17A rails, giving a nice 34A for single CPU abuse, enough even for OC'ing those power hungy Intel dual-cores coming down the pike.
I would be remiss if I didn't also discuss here the "limitations" placed on the various rail combinations by PCPnC, so....
The combined power draw on the +5V and +3.3V rails was spec'd for 200W continous with the 12V supply rails maxed out. This is really a thermal limit placed on the PS by PCPnC, and it should be noted also that this limit is for a 50C ambient environment and meant to keep the total continuous power at or below 850W.
The other limitation placed on the unit is a 54A continuous rating for the four 12V rails combined, with a 62A peak rating. As with the other rails, this too is a thermal limit, for operation at 50C, and in this case with the 5.5V/3.3V rail combination pulling 200W.
With the actual design of the supply and individual rail ratings, you really have more flexibility than indicated, more so if the inlet temp at the supply is below 50C. I won't list all the possibilities here, but I think it's safe to say this supply would not be the limiting factor in a system.
Now what about noise/ripple and regulation? Well, PCPnC has it spec'd out at 1% max noise/ripple peak-to-peak and 1% load/line regulation for all the positive supply rails. That's a total variation due to the combined effects of load variations, noise, and ripple of 2%, better than most PS's give for either one individually :D
Last specs - the supply has active Power Factor Correction with a 0.98 spec'd correction factor and a power conversion efficiency rating of 85%, both excellent values.
The Guts of the Beast
Ok, enough of the specs, let's take a look inside this puppy and how she does ;)
Here's a little collage of the insides of the PS and some looks at the rails (full size pics in thumbnails further down):
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You'll notice as you look through the pics that this 8 pound beast is indeed built like the proverbial tank. And from the input EMI filter all the way through to the output filters, high quality, high temp components are used throughout the unit, along with multiple high grade PWBs and heatsinks galore. The entire supply is built on a main PWB, with individual "daughterboards" mounted perpendicular to the main board and running most of the length of the supply, which also have smaller controller baby daughterboards on them. Everything appears well thought out and designed for reliability and performance, with wiring only where there's no other feasible choice. I won't describe each pic in detail, but notice the size and quality of the caps and inductors used througout and the overall workmanship.
In two of the pics, you'll find 4 adjustment pots. These are not accessible externally on a standard supply... but nothing a drill wouldn't fix, being as they are conveniently mounted together on the edge of the main PWB :hehe:
While far from done checking this PS out, here are some bits and pieces.
Initial look at performance
After giving the insides a going over, chained this beast up on the bench. For the initial look see borrowed a few drives from one of my rigs ( 2 Seagate Cuda's, a Plextor DVD R/W and a CD R/W drive) and mated them with a DFI NF4, a mildly OC'd Winnie on air, a floppy (yes, still use one on my bench :p: .), 1GB of memory, dual 6600GTs I haven't gotten around to modding yet, and a couple of high output 120mm fans. Not much of a load for this beast, so I added ~72W of static load on each of the PCIe connectors.
Over the course of a few days and testing of various things, I periodically checked the supply. From idle to full bore the maximum variation I saw on any of the main supply rails was 30 mV measured at the PS connectors with a DMM. At any given load point the fluctuation was <= 10mV.
An anectedotal piece of info... last night while memtest was running at an "edge frequency" looping T5, we had a storm pass thru. An incadescent desk lamp I had on the bench dimmed to less than half brightness half a dozen times during a couple minute period, for times ranging from 2 to 6 secs. The PCPnC was plugged into the same power strip, yet not a single error occurred during the entire time. As a point of reference, I've inadvertently induced failures during the sequence before when probing the MB with a high impedance scope probe.
Speaking of noise/ripple and a scope... here are some pics of the +12V, +5V, and +3.3V rails. These are short term time elapsed pics, two of which I had to post-process to adjust the gamma on enough to make out the graticle lines (highlighted), which were turned off. They're a tad grainy, but try taking time elasped pics with one hand while holding a scope probe to a MB with the other sometime :p: One note on the scope pics, the high frequency noise present is from the MB/CPU/Mem etc.
http://img8.exs.cx/img8/6784/120vannotated3rr.png
http://img8.exs.cx/img8/4807/50v2annotated2fz.png
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Other comments
This falls in the IDC category, but the fan at this load level was quiet. Couldn't hear it over the MB and CPU fans at all. Had to bend down and get my ear within about 6" to hear it and even then had to be in front of it's exhaust. Was a nice low pitched tone... not a loud high pitched squeal.
The price, well a couple of comments here. First, buy direct from PCPnC and save yourself the 20% to 25% markup you'll pay to get it elsewhere. Second, this supply isn't for you if your only intent is to power your current generation, single processor MB with a handful of drives and fans... the 510-SLI will more than meet your needs. But, if you want a supply that will give you head-of-the-class performance, you tend to OC the dickens out of your hardware and throw everything but the kitchen sink at your supply, and want a reliable supply that can handle anything you throw at it now or in the future, then you might consider the 850 SSI. I expect this one will meet any needs I may have for at least the next 5 years and there isn't much hardware-wise I could say that for.
Peace :toast:
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Disclaimer: Any errors, ommisions, or other errata are mine, all mine... and you can't have them :p: No Winnies or RAMs were harmed during the making of this post. :D
