And again i debate on PSU's.....

[Jacobman]

Alright guys here is the debate, OCZ powerstream 520 or the Sparkle FSP550. It would be great to save the extra bucks and put it to a xp-120. Which is the superior unit and is the OCZ more expensive because of the sleeved cords and mirror reflection. Also it the Sparkle a little shy on 4 pin connectors or are they hidden?

[larva]

The OCZ, while a great supply, is more expensive primarily because of markup. OCZ does not make supplies, they have them made by Topower. If you were buying this directly from Topower, the price would be a lot lower. The glitzy features have something to do with it, but they more are intended to justify the price in the user's mind rather than cause it.

If you open up a FSP550-60PLG and the OCZ, you find that there's a lot more supply inside the Sparkle. Both are capable and powerful units, but the Sparkle is almost a different class of equipment, all rating aside. Not that the OCZ isn't a great unit, but the Sparkle and the PC Power&Cooling 510 are inherently more powerful devices.

Another thing to note, if you are talking about the rig in your sig, the TP430 you already have is a lot better solution than the OCZ 520. The OCZ 520, while capable of driving big 12V loads, is not capable of driving big 5V loads. Your board derives Vcore from the 5V line and your video card's gpu is powered from the 5V and therefore the system as a whole places the majority of the load on the 5V rail and practically no load on the 12V. No one supply is "best", you must match their strengths against the nature and magnitude of the load for optimal results.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/other/display/powerful-psu.html

Notice the excellent results turned in by both the TP430 and the OCZ PS470, and the PS520's difficulty with large 5V loads.

[BrutalDrew]

What boards do use the 5v line for CPU and video? Is it only Socket A?

[larva]

It is any that do. The A7N8X is one of the last commonly encountered boards that derive Vcore from 5V. The Epox 8RDA+ is another still occasionally encountered board that does. All P4 and A64, and most good NF2 boards utilize the 12V line.

As far as the video, this is more a quality of the card than the motherboard. Video cards with no external power connecter are powered by the AGP bus, which I believe in modern implemenations is powered via the 5V. Cards like the ATI 9700/9800 series and the Nvidia FX5800/5900 have external power connectors, and therefore could use the 12V if the designers chose, but use the 5V line nonetheless. PCI express video cards use the 12V line, and as far as I know, the AGP variants of those cards utiliize the 12V line.

[Jacobman]

Oh you guys have it all wrong. This will be for a DFI NF4 ultra-d board, 3000 venice, x800xl.

[BrutalDrew]

Oh you guys have it all wrong. This will be for a DFI NF4 ultra-d board, 3000 venice, x800xl.

I would save the extra cash and get the Sparkle FSP550-60PLG.

[Bad ConNecTioN]

Honestly, I think you could save even more money by going with a smaller PSU. I am thinking the Fortron Blue Storm for $73 from Ewiz

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Which is the superior unit

I'll probably just be echoing Larva's opinion, but my opinion is that the Fortron/Sparkle is the electrically superior design. It's built for the workstation/server environment, where things just have to work and stay working as long into the future as possible. The Topower based OCZ units on the other hand, are meant for home enthusiasts - they're not built with extremes in mind. They are, however, more feature rich (external pots); and this may or may not be important to you. In terms of voltage regulation, they're just about even - regardless of OCZ's overrated 1% figure and Fortron's underrated 5% figure, they use essentially the same technology. Expect 2%-4% consistantly from both between no load and full power (IOW, 0 watts output compared to 520w and 550w).

The OCZ units are more expensive because of their huge markup alone - they don't make them themselves as Fortron does. Up in Canada here, one can still find a Topower P6 600w for around $154 Canadian. The OCZ 600w based on the P6 is still flirting around with the $250 mark. True the OCZ will have a better warranty (3+2 years compared to one year), and the Topower may not have the external pots (they're optional), but a $100 markup for these extras is still way too much IMO.

[larva]

Oh you guys have it all wrong. This will be for a DFI NF4 ultra-d board, 3000 venice, x800xl.That would be an easy mistake to make since you weren't specific in your request. And since you have left a similiar level of vagueness concerning your expectations and goals for the machine, it's still hard to give a really good recommendation.

[Jacobman]

I want to try to oc my venice to 2.8ghz. Although i think any of these psu's would do it. OCZ PS 520, AX500-A, Sparkle 550. What is the downside, if any, or duel 12v rails that the AX500-A has.

[larva]

I want to try to oc my venice to 2.8ghz. Although i think any of these psu's would do it. OCZ PS 520, AX500-A, Sparkle 550. What is the downside, if any, or duel 12v rails that the AX500-A has.The downside is the rail that runs the cpu is only 15A. This may prove limiting considering your OC goal, and it may not. It's worth a shot, but it could prove the chip attains higher clock rate with a stronger supply like the FSP550 or OCZ520.

[Bad ConNecTioN]

Would a venice really pull that much power? I thought it was mainly high end Intels that were eating duel rail PSUs alive.