Opinions on Sparkle PSU's?

[fizzy]

Hi,

Just bought a radeon x1900 crossfire master card (intending to get a 2nd when I can afford it ), asus a8r32 board and 3800+ amd x2 chip (all from here I must add! )...

...and silly me found out I should have bought a psu too - as my antec 430w (true430p ?) isn't up to the job according to the leaflet supplied with the gfx card (requires 30a on 12v rail, and current psu is only 20 ).

I've been looking at getting a psu locally as I wanna set my system up this weekend - but didn't see any well known/big brand psu's. Did see an odd blue one though...

....which when checking on here, it turns out its actually a Sparkle 700w psu. It also appears to be a listed psu on the Ati Crossfire compatibility page too. Whats the general opinion on these? Or should I hold out and get a Enermax Liberty 620W or an antec 550w instead?

....or would be current psu be ok for a while? Or can I use two psu's, as I have a few spare older ones around too.... 350w-400w and the like.

 

[fizzy]

Is that 30a for Xfire or for a single card? I was hoping to run a X1900XT off a Akasa 460w.

Well, according the sheet included with the X1900XT, it recommends 450w psu with 30A on 12v for a SINGLE card, and a 550w psu with 38A on 12v rails...

So in answer to your question, 30a for a single card. Just found that a micro psu I have in a fairly basic case (PPC/Linux system) has a psu which states its 420w, but has 2 x 12v rails - one rated at 14a, the other 16a - which makes 30 in total. Shame the power cables are soooo short on it (as its only for a small case.) Also has the extra clip on connector to turn the board power connector into the extended (44?) pin one that the asus board also requires...

...anybody heard of "Aspire" psu's??

 

[fizzy]

Sorry - I think what I was trying to get at is that more modern psu's tend to have dual (or more) 12v rails to help keep current up across components. They also tend to have a better 12v total ampage too, which is I guess just coincidental, implemented due to modern pc demands. I'll try explaining things a bit better next time.

Anyhow, I went ahead and bought an FSP "Epsilon" FX700-GLN, and I'm pretty pleased with it. Heard a few people say its fairly loud compared to others around that power level, but its actually seems quieter than my old Antec 430w, which was meant to be a low noise model....? Could be because I have it in the bottom of an antec P180 case....

Pc is now powering up fine with X1900XT card installed. So well happy.

All I need now is to buy another X1900XT card while they are on special offer to get a nice crossfire setup.

 

[fizzy]

Hi , i have looked at this psu and its says 4 times 12v rails @15A each so how does it supply 30A recommended for a 1900 or does it combine 2 rails to make 2 times 30A , the reason i am asking this is because on my Tagan 580 W it has a switch on the back that combines the rails and i have had some instability issues on boot up into windows when the Ati ccc starts it looks like the load sucks the power out of my system and on changing to 2 gig of ram it is even worse so i recon im on the edge and changing this switch to combined has made things better, but anyway the question is does the Sparkle combine the 4 times 12v
Thanks

When I checked the PSU, it inded has 4 12v rails. It would appear that the rails are split across 4 different components - one for the PCIE connector 1, 1 for the system board/cpu, 3rd for 2nd pcie/cpu and 4th - can't recall off the top of my head. So it appears that its more a case of putting the power were it needs it rather than a combined load?

There is no figure for 12v combined loads, but it does have a combined load figure of most of the rails on the label wit a max limit of 630w or so....?


As for noise - this psu has a large 12cm temp controlled fan in it, and a honeycomb grill on the back (like a lot of psu's these days) which probably helps keep the noise down - and the fact that I'm probably nowhere near its max capacity yet as I only have the 1 gfx card at the moment.. Also have it in a P180 so its got the lower chamber to itself and the HDD's...