Seasonic M12 Modular 600W Power Supply Review
 

Gone are the cheapo power supplies of yesteryear. Processors today from both Intel and AMD require a power supply that can deliver a steady diet of power. The Seasonic name has become the standard of barrier in power supply from a distant land, China. We are looking into one of the new M12 Modular series today rated at 600 watts from Seasonic.

http://www.madshrimps.be/gotoartik.php?articID=518

Great article, I agree on the price being too high. :ws:

M12 and S12E+ apparently use improved version of S12's design so that would explain lower consumption.

I would keep it worth of mentioning that in reality there aren't any virtual 12V rails with current limiting meaning there won't be problems in distribution of load.


And high quality and cheap price meet rarely if even then, quality component's like Japanese capacitors cost more than some generic "made somewhere in Asia" capacitors. (Seasonic made Antec Neo HE uses cheaper components, starting from single side PCB made of cheaper material)

Going through hot box test with flying colours at these temperatures tells something about quality...
http://www.jonnyguru.com/review_deta...=13&page_num=2

got me the 700W version a couple of months ago, very nice PSU, very quiet compared to the crappy levicom 550Watt I had (never going cheap again on psu :s first Q-tec then this one..) + higher and more stable 12V lines 5V lines, 3V lines.

bought the 700watt for my amd xp 1700+ which gets about 1.76-1.79Vcore + radeon X800XT@ XT PE :)

the reason I got the highest Wattage PSU (i know its high for my setup :p) is that I figured the higher wattage model will be more quiet than a lower wattage psu + future upgrade to conroe + dx10 cards.

You don't need to change PSU at least for next 10 years unless used voltages and connectors are changed.
And unless you're going for 8800GTX SLI with quad core CPU you can run also other PC from it without it even sweating.


Wattage doesn't have really much anything to do with how quiet or noisy PSU is at certain load. Biggest factors in that are efficiency and design of cooling.
Amount of produced heat (high efficiency PSU can produce just half of heat produced by PSU with efficiency normal couple years ago) and heatsink design affects to what amount of cooling capacity is needed, which again affects to required airflow.
Fan size again affects greatly to required RPMs for achieving needed airflow, smaller fans need higher RPMs which means more and higher pitched more annoying noise.
Also noise level of similar sized fans varies according to quality, differences in that can be quite huge.


In fact high power PSUs have lower efficiency at light loads like sub 100W compared to "medium" power PSUs if quality of design is similar.

Also 12cm fan of 700W model is high speed version vs. medium speed version in lower models, fan control circuitry just keeps its RPM similar to medium speed fan of lower models until that extra airflow is needed at highest output.

700w for that setup was pointless, a decent 300w would pull it. And you wouldn't need the 700w for a conroe + dx10 either, only if you're going berserk on the overclocking, loads of ram and sli.

Another thing that should be added to the review however, is that the 60mm fan does not start up at boot, only starts up if a threshold is reached, but then never stops again.. Even if heat/power/voltage goes back to normal levels.

expensive yes but if you look at the insane efficency, the noise levels and the stability of the voltages for a modular PSU, it is exceptional


the 700W range is only needed for GTX SLI and the 1 KW products are only needed for AMDs Quad FX with SLI

Seasonic M12 having problem starting ; or any high efficiency PSU having the same issue-
http://www.2cpu.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79771

I have had two M12 600; both could start with a single 80mm fan.

direct link : http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page5.html

Higher efficiency PSUs generally tend to need higher minimum power on the 12V line in order to simply run. Typically, we're talking about 1A or greater. Older, less efficient PSUs have much lower minumum current needs, under 0.5A and often ZERO.

In some recent motherboards, there are various time delays implemented in order to ensure that the PSU (and motherboard) is not subject to a huge current surge when everything turns on all at once. Many Asus boards have been identified as doing this, al though you won't get Asus to talk about it — I tried — they will say it's proprietary information they don't want to share with competitors. They are not the only board makers doing this.

good info there

So what does this mean exactly...
 

What I mean to say is, how does one determine if this going to be a problem for them. As I would prefer using an ASUS board (P5N32-E SLI). Using the xtreme PSU calculator it tells my Peak wattage would be at 684 watts. Anyways I was considering M12 700 watt Seasonic or 620 Watt Corzair. I would really like to be above my peak wattage (assuming xtreme PSU Calculator calculates for peak wattage). Most people tell me my system wont need more than 500 watts. So im not even sure what kind of power supply im gonna need. And I would really hate run into this problem. Either that or not be above Peak wattage.