Could the action of leading one to the right decision by providing an intentionally wrong reason in fact be a rightful action? Hummm. Before anyone answers, consider: Anyone see "300." The Battle of Thermopylae was lost, however this war was eventually won by employing of this (misguided?) ethical rendering. Greek leaders could not convince their constituents that a navy was required to sustain a defense against the Persian threat. They manufactured a more credible threat so to intentionally mislead their constituents, and thereby received the support to build a navy. This navy was built under an entirely false pretext, but then effectively provided its intended purpose. It was ThiS navy that finally beat the Persians. Who cares? We all do. Had the war gone the other way, it is Very likely the concept of democracy would have been lost with the Greeks and our lives would be very different today. Hummm.(I'm sure PC would enjoy this conversation!)

Well, I think I am more confused than when I first stared the post. I am leaning towards the single 12v rail after reading all the replys to this post but not 100% sure. I have been reading about the multiple 12v rail psu's and apparently some that claim they are really are not and that they are wired in a way to provide overload protection. I also read that if the PSU lacks information as to what should be wired to what device most likely it is not a true multi 12v rail setup.

>Could the action of leading one to the right decision by>providing an intentionally wrong reason in fact be a rightful>action? Hummm. >>Before anyone answers, consider: >>Anyone see "300." The Battle of Thermopylae was lost, however>this war was eventually won by employing of this (misguided?)>ethical rendering. Greek leaders could not convince their>constituents that a navy was required to sustain a defense>against the Persian threat. They manufactured a more credible>threat so to intentionally mislead their constituents, and>thereby received the support to build a navy. This navy was>built under an entirely false pretext, but then effectively>provided its intended purpose. It was ThiS navy that finally>beat the Persians. Who cares? We all do. >>Had the war gone the other way, it is Very likely the concept>of democracy would have been lost with the Greeks and our>lives would be very different today. Hummm.>>(I'm sure PC would enjoy this conversation!) We may not see eye to eye on a few things Sam however I do recognize your advanced knowledge of electronics. Be that as it may the interesting summation you have presented is quite spot on in the context of perpetuating the sale of a better design which in turn the user can and will appreciate without a skilled technical understanding of such products.PCP&C was purchased by OCZ (the memory company) a while back. The reason I continued to recommend and use them is because part of that deal was that the engineering and testing of the supplies will remain as it has been since day one and not change. I have PCP&C PSU's from the late 90's that are still running just fine today. In a world where electronics are designed to be thrown away, PCP&C has and will continue to design with the same QC. They also build custom units on special order. We used them on several occasions at Boeing for lab supplies that required very specific and critical design specs.Baring the engineering behind a properly made single rail supply, the fact of the matter is I do not wish to sit there and play musical rails when I am trying to upgrade, add or change something down the road. I want that supply to move to the next upgrade or even complete system change a year or two later... and I also do not wish to sit there and play

And I was so sure the Battle of Thermopylae would do it. Darn, OK here's that final dual for world supremacy, 500BC style: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_SalamisStick with the winners. 1) Find a single 12v rail PS. You Do Not want to be messing around trying to figure out what load is using what 12v buss. Don't worry about all that electrical stuff. My pilot constituents could not care less about how a CSD works. As long as the generators will parallel and the busses all power-up, they are happy. 2) Choose either PC or Silverstone. You Can Trust these 2 mfg. There are certainly other reputable PS mfgs, but how hard do you want to work at this? Sadly, in the case of most users faith is an inescapable component to a buying decision. The mfg's spin about this property or that will be undecipherable to a lay user. PC's convoluted dissertation about single vs multi rail is a good example. I'm sure we could find Silverstone making a less-than-precise statement too. It's the game. They ALL feed on the under-informed user. 3) Get the best efficiency rating you can find. You now know what that is. 4) Don't worry too much about massive wattage overkill. Component power requirement are going Down, not up. This drive toward decreased power usage is a huge selling point for big customers that use thousands of these systems. For instance (imHo), this why we Need Gasoline at $10/gal Right Now. It will drive invention toward efficiency even more quickly. A PS that will provide - an honest, 50C, 600 watts - is plenty, now and into the future. Let's see, what else . . .

>A PS that will provide - an honest, 50C, 600 watts - is plenty, now and into the future. Although I do understand what you mean by the temp to watt (efficiency) rating I would go just a bit higher than that on the output in order to make sure the unit not only supplied anything I may require in the way of additional components, but also had use for a minimum of 3-5 years in an upgrade. That decision is also based on if I was going to upgrade and keep the old tower functional. At that point I may consider a lower watt rating.I use their 1KW unit for several reasons however in this day and age I would not suggest any less than a 750-850watt model on a high performance tower to ensure future compatibility, overclocking and upgrades.

>Well, I think I am more confused than when I first stared the>post. Don't be. If you want the topmost of the top-end, get PC Power & Cooling, and then get 8 hours of sleep about it. If you don't want to spend quite as much, get midline.What's going on here in the AVSIM hardware forum anyway? :D These other guys (Sam, Nick) are mere striplings when it comes to PC Power & Cooling. I am the *original* PC Power advocate here at AVSIM. :DThis dual-rail/single rail thing, I am not going to get into--it's debated all the time and yes theoretically each has its merits. My take on the whole matter is that you get a power supply that is the best. I have built with many brands over the years, and the most reliable I have seen are PC Power.It's all about how much money someone wants to spend, although really the high-end PC Power etc. are not much more expensive than the mid-line, especially today.It should tell you something when OCZ buys out PC Power & Cooling, and OCZ decides to *keep* the PC Power brand around, as their _high end_ power supply line.I still have an 11 year old PC Power Turbo-Cool 300 watter running 24-7 in one of these work computers that I built. It really is able to put out 300 watts in the high-heat environment. That's more than you can say for most power supplies.RhettE8500, Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64

I'm OK with Silverstone at 600 watts cuz I'm a techno guy, but if you don't know, you gotta simply spend the bucks. They're both right. Speed costs. Go with the PC at (at least) 750watts.

Here is the one I am buying. https://shop.pcpower.com/power-supply/silen...quad-black.html I am building a new system and this time I wont be saying ... I wish I would have got that one. I was going to get the 610w at first but for an extra 40.00 I am getting a 750w with a 60A vrail. This should do the trick for me for several years. Thanks for all who posted and helped me sort it out!

>Here is the one I am buying.>https://shop.pcpower.com/power-supply/silen...quad-black.htmlThat's the p/s I just bought for my new fs machine (specs in sig).It installed like a champ in the Silverstone case I have. The only thing to watch is that these are rather long power supplies compared to some. In some mid-towers, the cables might be a bit bunched.RhettE8500, Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64

Excellent choiceAs Mace pointed out cable management is important however since PCP&C does not use those hard encasements for wiring harness the are very flexible and it

Another thing to consider when purchasing a PSU is the noise and heat. As stated above, the less efficient the PSU, the more power is wasted and the more heat is generated. The fan needs to work harder to get rid of this heat and it then alos uses more power and makes more noise.If you look at the reviews of PSU's that include graphs of noise and efficiency as a function of the PSU load you will see that most have the highest efficiency at significantly less than 100% load, more like 50%. You will also see that they run quieter at this reduced load.So not only do you want to select a good quality PSU, but if you also want to minimize your power losses, carbon footprint, heat generated, and noise produced, you should select a PSU size such that its best efficiency rating is near the total load of your computer. The reviews at the Tom's Hardware and Anandtech sites usually include these curves. Looking at the curves you will see that if you operate a PSU at close to its rated capacity, your efficiency will generally be a lot lower than advertised and your fans will be running at full speed.Ted

Wanted to let everyone know I just bought the 750 Power PC and Cooling PSU for 119.00 after rebate at New Egg. I researched the price for this everywhere and this was the lowest. The highest I saw it for was 198.00! Thanks for eveyones help and thoughts.

That's a great buy. You're going to be happy with that one for years and years.