Bitcoin Forum

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5932/computex-2012-the-rosewill-booth

Look at the first picture!

$5 says that the OEM is Enermax.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=283

Lepa seems to have managed to keep the size under control a bit better. Or is the gigantic nature of the Rosewill unit a marketing bullet point?

+3.3V@25A,+5V@25A,+12V1@20A,+12V2@20A,+12V3@30A,+12V4@30A,+12V5@30A,+12V6@30A,-12V@0.5A,+5Vsb@4A

No single rail?

Complaining about being multi-rail? Did you see it's efficiency? And it's hot box results?

Quote from the Jonny Guru review "Days like this are why I love reviewing power supplies. I mean, how could I not? No popping MOSFETs in the load testers this time, just lots and lots of heat producing power. By the time this was over, I felt like I was hanging out in my furnace room. And really... what could be more awesome than this unit has been so far than to see it still being that awesome at forty three degrees? Yes, folks, it did full power at three degrees over the rated temp spec. "

Yes, I saw them, but if you can't fully load those individual rails, it's power that will never be seen.

Fun fact: Under 100% load, this PSU requires a 15A breaker all to itself.

Hope you have your wiring mapped out  ;D

Granted that they don't design specifically for Bitcoiners, would be tricky to power more than 8 high end GPUs without rigging up some special adapters to share the 2 rails set aside for CPU+Mobo.

But I'd want a Jonny Guru review of any single rail 1600W option, just to be sure it would hot box at 80+ Gold.

Well said, I agree!

what is hot box?

Testing near max rated ambient temperatures.

16 PEG connectors. Oh my.

I think this is a power supply aimed directly at Folding@Home and Bitcoin miners.

"Rosewill are aiming for a unique individual – one willing to pair a dual processor system with several GPUs that have tri 6-pin power connectors."

Lol, how about aiming for another unique individual - a miner running a Sempron and 6 GPUs. I agree, though, that the lack of single rail is a negative. 

I agree and disagree.  Singlre rail for that is very dangerous.  That would need some seriously thick wire to carry those amps safely.  I think it would be best to have it split into 2 rails, not 6.

Good point - I just did a quick check, and other units in this power range have multiple rails. Silverstone 1500w has 8 and Thermaltake 1500w has 4.

How do we know that this supply is multirail? I find nothing in the referenced article that claims that this is so.

But then again I didn't look very hard.

Lepa 1600w specs

Are the lepa's any good? I almost bought one but I couldn't find jack on them online besides johnny guru.

They are great.  But you can only load them specifically due to multiple rails.

There are no specs on the linked article?

Plus it has an 80 Plus Silver logo on it. The Lepa G1600 is an 80 Plus Gold unit.

That is correct, but lepa spiked my interest on the 6 rails it has.

Looks like the OEM for the Rosewill Hercules 1600W unit is Hipower and it will have two rails, 50A for CPU and 110A for everything else:

http://www.highpower-tech.com/eng/product_page.php?class=20100517145929&id=20120523113421#product

If that 50A/110A is true than the Lepa would still be the better unit given it's 80+ Gold rating. Just have to actually pay attention when using the molex/sata to PCIE power adapters.

Sir, you're a fail.

What does that even matter? You should never fully load a high amp rail with a single connector.

The same applies to 850w PSUs.

The main reason to have single rail was be able to pull the most out of the PSU. Having dedicated rail for unused parts such as CPU does not help.

Isn't that what I just said? read above that..


and two rails as in - cpu + 12v rail - 12v rail..

Screw Rosewill, my LEPA 1600W is small, quiet, and has a 80+ Gold rating. :D

The issue isn't that you're loading one connector in normal operation, it's the lack of effective overcurrent protection in a fault condition. If you had a molex connector plugged into something and it developed a hard short from 12V to ground that doesn't burn through, you could easily melt the wire insulation without tripping OCP. Say it's at the end of a 80cm 18 gauge peripheral cable, with the wire resistance and contact resistance you could have short that's pulling 100A but not enough trip the protection. That's why the ATX spec limits the current drawn per rail.

This was removed in ATX v2.3 specs

Yes, but it is the reason why we see so many X*20A rail designs. I personally prefer the single rail power supplies since they're a no-brainer with no rail balancing, but you do have accept the fact when using them that there's a greater possibility that a fault could cause substantial damage than there is with a design that limits the rails to 20A or 30A.

It's not just a convenience tradeoff as most make it out to be, it's also a cost tradeoff.

It is cost prohibitively expensive to put 20A current sensors on all rails for a condition (>20A & <100A) which rarely occurs in real life.

Especially for these monstrous power supplies that require six rails to keep the current limit down. Still, considering the cost of a 1600W silver or gold PSU, I would say it's probably more of an added expense than cost prohibitive on the BOM. I'm not sure what this one will retail at, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it at retail for $300-$400.