Shane Baxtor29 September 2008, 10:00 AM
1000+ Watt power supplies aren't for everyone, so we take a look at something a bit more realistic, the 850 Watt iCute that packs quite the warranty.
While 1000 Watt, 1.5KW and other high numbers may sound extremely impressive in the power supply market, there’s no denying that for many people this huge amount of power is simply unnecessary and does nothing more than put them out of pocket. If you’re looking at $1500 processors and $2000 graphics card setups, adding an extra $400 for an absolute top-of-the-line power supply doesn’t seem like a lot. But if you find yourself looking for a whole system for around the $1500 mark, what kind of power supply should you be looking at?
If you think your next upgrade will again involve purchasing a whole new system, you could probably get away with a good-quality 620 Watt–750 Watt power supply. On the other hand, if you think that in 12 months time everything is going great, but you'd like to get some extra FPS by introducing a second graphics card or a more powerful one, climbing up to an 850 Watt unit is probably going to be a good idea.
iCute, who are better-known for their cases, also have a large range of power supplies, ranging from 350 Watt all the way up to 850 Watt. At the top of the chain is the iCute 850 Watt AP850AS power supply, which sports the features that most users want to see.
From a specifications front, 850 Watt is provided by the use of four 12-volt rails that come in at 20 AMP each. The remaining wattage is made up with another 60 AMP spread across the 3.3-volt and 5-volt rails. The AP850AS is part of the 80plus range, which means that an absolute minimum of 80% efficiency is offered on the unit.
On pulling the unit out of the box for the first time, you notice the quality of the mirror finish, alongside the fact that there are no cables hanging off it. Like a lot of higher-end power supply units, it uses modular connectivity to keep the spaghetti of cables in your case down to a minimum. Externally speaking, another stand-out feature is, of course, the 140mm fan that sits atop the unit. Thanks to the LEDs embedded in it, the large fan emits a blue light when powered on.
While everything looks very flashy so far, connectivity is, naturally, one of the most important features. Included are our main motherboard connectors, which are a 24-pin connector with a 20 + 4 split, alongside a 6-pin and 8-pin motherboard connector. If you find yourself running multiple graphics cards, you’re in luck. Included are connectors for four 8-pin PCI Express graphics card connectors in a 6+2 pin configuration, which is a great setup in the event that if you need four 6-pin connectors you’re not out of luck by having 8-Pin connectors that don’t break off. Also included within the cable set are 10 4-pin molex connectors and four SATA connectors for your ROM drives and hard disk drives.
While there are plenty of synthetic tests out there that tell you how well a power supply can handle certain situations, there’s nothing like real-world tests. Placing two HD 4870 X2s into our testbed, a configuration that can spike at over 800 Watts under load, lets us know just how well a power supply can handle today’s extremely power-hungry components.
We’re happy to write that the power supply didn’t fumble once under constant loops of 3D testing. But while it handled the HD 4870 X2 configuration with no issues, this is the minimum amount of power you want and doesn’t really give you much of an upgrade path for more power-hungry devices in the future. What this unit is good for is a single Dual GPU graphics card or two single GPU graphics cards, along with a couple of hard drives, a decent overclock on your CPU and the standard line-up of fans and other accessories, while also giving you some more room for improvement.
The iCute 850 Watt PSU has the power you need for today’s hard core computer components, while also giving you room for some more hard drives, a second graphics card, or even a more powerful single one at a later date. Throw in the flashy looks, the big fan that keeps your system cool and the fact that iCute are so confident with the product that they offer a lifetime warranty, and you’re onto a winner of a unit priced at just over $200.