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best of the best high end power supply

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batboy

batboy

Senior Moment
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Joined
Jan 12, 2001
Location
Kansas, USA
This will be a fun thread. I have the old school version of PC Power and Cooling 750 Silencer PSU, but it still works great (built long before OCZ bought out the company). This thing has been a wonderful beast. But, with a greedy 12 core i9-7920X and Crossfire pair of RX 580 vid cards, plus lots of drives and fans, and watercooling, etc., I'm hitting the limit of my current PSU when I'm doing extreme overclocking and benchmarking. I'm probably going to replace the two Radeon cards with a single RTX 2080 Ti, but that card is a power hog too.

I'm looking for a top rated, high end, high power, top of the line PSU rated at over 1000 watts, like maybe in the 1200 to 1600 watt range, with single rail and a bunch of amps. I started to say, cost is no object. But, I don't have an unlimited budget. Let's say high range of my budget is $300 to $500, if I can find a truly epic PSU.

Let's begin by making a list and see what choices I got. I've been out of the loop for a while, so I don't know what's good anymore. Antec and Corsair used to make good PSUs, are they still in the running? Now that OCZ sold the PC Power and Cooling line, they are much better nowadays. I also heard good things about Seasonic and EVGA, but don't know much about them.

EDIT: I think from the initial reading of reviews and searching through forum posts, that I'm leaning towards the Corsair AX1600i. It seems like a very solid and reliable unit. The cost is not much more than the AX1200i and the AX1600i is more futureproof too. Looks like Amazon has it for $340. Perhaps I answered my own question?

List of options:
PC Power and Cooling Silencer 1200
EVGA SuperNova 1600
Corsair AX1600i
 
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PCP&C 1200W is already an old unit. I mean it may cause problems with some motherboards and low power states. I also had big problems with this unit on one motherboard but don't remember which one. It simply didn't want to start at all. I'm still using my PSU for benching and it has a couple of years (reviewed by Bobn0va but can't find it on the reviews list).

I would pick something from EVGA or Corsair. Both brands have great units. My last purchase was 650W SFX PSU from Corsair. Their renewed SFX line is 80+ Platinum. Really quiet even under full load. Up to 50%+ load is not spinning the fan. I know you are not interested in SFX but it's amazing how these small PSU work nowadays.
Simply pick one of the top and new units with 10 year warranty.
 
EVGA Supernova G3 or P3 (the suffixes matter - both of those are high quality).

Seasonic Focus lineup, also all great.

Corsair AXi, all solid...


Choose between one of those... you won't notice a difference. I also wouldn't go over 1200W... no point (unless HCC chip down the road?). You mention extreme overclocking, but you cool with ambient methods, right?
 
This was one time when there is a single best choice when picking a computer component. The Corsair AX1600i power supply is a clear winner and is in a class of its own.

80 PLUS Titanium efficiency power
100% Japanese capacitors
Totem-pole PFC Gallium Nitride transistors
Fully modular, 133 amps on the +12v rail

This morning, I ordered one from Amazon for $339.99 with free 2 day shipping (yippee!).

Since I have this thread started already, I'll post my thoughts here after I get the PSU and give it a trial run (torture test).

[EDIT]Yeah, I'm watercooled, I do have a chiller I can setup, but haven't used for 10 years. That said, I will not be going below freezing, I meant extreme overclocking, not extreme cooling. My bad. One might say 1600 watts is overkill for me, and it's true at the moment. People told me the same thing when I bought my 750 watt PCP&C all those many years ago.
 
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If you pick 80+ Platinum/Titanium series then these units will easily make more than you see on the label. If 1200W and 1600W are in similar price then why not but personally I would buy 850W or something near and if needed then for benching only I would use 2nd PSU. I was doing that in the past, recently I don't have 2 gfx cards+ for benching so I don't need it. I just doubt you will go above constant ~400-500W on the CPU ( 16-32 cores) and graphics cards are up to 300-350W what gives about 850W for short period of time. More than that can be required on LN2 when you set much higher voltages.
 
This was one time when there is a single best choice when picking a computer component. The Corsair AX1600i power supply is a clear winner and is in a class of its own.
Click to expand...
Is it? You are really going to notice any difference over something rated just as high but costs less? That PSU really isn't in a class of its own IMO, but rates up there with the other top Tier1 PSUs.

Extreme overclocking to me is using extreme cooling methods, not ambient.

Anyway, enjoy your 1.6KW monster! I'm sure it will work just fine.... :)
 
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I have a Lepa (Enermax) G1600 for my benching rig that hasn't given me any issues. It's bounced around my other two rigs at different times, too. I think it got a 9.5 on jonnyguru, but they "updated" the site and I can't find the review now.

edit: jonnyguru's power supply reviews jump from 2008 to 2017 so I'm not sure where it went.
 
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I don't know if they ever got the site/forum working properly. It was in an upgrade for what feels like months now. :(
 
My 1200W unit has maybe 8 years if not more and it wasn't even spinning the fan for most of the time. It's so clean inside you wouldn't say it's so old and that I was using it for benching.
 
Earthdog always has to give us a reality check. But, he makes a good point. A great PSU just hangs out and does its thing, mostly unnoticed. The only time you think about them is when it's not performing up to snuff. I might have went with the Corsair AX1200i (since that would still be overkill at the present time) except it doesn't have the Gallium Nitride mosfets. The AX1200i uses the standard APFC design that tops out at 96% efficiency and the Totem-Pole Bridgeless PFC design that the AX1600i has supposedly can reach up to 99%.

Woomack, the AX1600i has a 80 PLUS Titanium, ETA-A+ certification compared to the AX1200i's 80 PLUS Platinum rating. Not a big difference, but still... it is one notch above in efficiency.

Whichdoctor, yes you have the same PC Power and Cooling PSU as my old one. Not sure I'd call it orange, actually, not sure what to call it. Maybe burnt copper? No other PSU is that color, you can't mistake it.

Oh well, I committed and it's ordered now. Compared to the price of some components, like my i9 CPU or vid card(s) that seems to need replaced every couple of years, the hard working PSU is not all that costly. Especially if it'll last the 10 years listed on the warranty.
 
Hey Scotty, I didn't know the PCP&C units came in different colors. I said in my last post that the color was "Maybe a burnt copper."

EarthDog said:
I mean, if it doesn't have Gallium Nitride FETs... Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabage. :p
Click to expand...

Hard to tell in forum chat if this is sarcasm (joking, I can tell). But, since the AX1600i is the only PSU in the world with Gallium Nitride mosfets … then I'll agree... everything else is indeed... Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabage.
 
I found a Oklahoma Wolf review for the Corsair AX1600i. It's on JonnyGURU.com if you want to google it.

Pfft. Gallium Nitride. I’d have called it Galleon Nitride. This is a Corsair product, is it not?
Click to expand...

He's a hoot!

Mr. OK Wolf said this in his review's summary:

Corsair had a really high bar to clear with this one. Not only was it supposed to beat the competition, it was supposed to beat their own AX1500i. In general, I have to say they met that goal. This unit is more efficient, more stable, and more powerful. And it has better ripple control. But is it good enough for you to go ahead and upgrade your AX1500i? No. It isn’t. It’s an incremental improvement on the older model that most people aren’t going to see any value out of replacing it. But if you don’t already have the 1500W, this thing is a no brainer.
Click to expand...

I promise to torture it immediately and report back on how well it does.
 
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