Power supplies have often been overlooked by mainstream users and system builders alike. And during the early days of the PC, a 150W power supply was sufficient to power everything within a system. However nowadays, with PC components being ever so power hungry ... the power supply is now one of the most important part of the system. It is this unit that gives life to your precious PC.

I remember through personal experience many years ago, I purchased a so called high-end non branded 550W power supply, only to find out that the true power output was only a mere 200W. What was more annoying was the fact that it was really unstable, I could only power upto 4 IDE devices ... any more the system would become extremely unstable. This lead me to investigate further. I later found out that the +12V rail is where the problem was. This +12V rail is like power line, feeding power to all the devices attached to it. The more devices, the more power it will draw.

My power supply had just one +12V rail with maximum of 10AMPS. Now, you might think ... that should be enough. But remember, this was meant to be a high-end power supply. I should be able to plug numerous IDE/SATA devices and case fans with no problems. But the truth is ... all the devices, case fans and other peripherals used more than the 10AMPs the power supply could provide. To solve the problem, what I really needed was a power supply that offered two or three +12V rails with a minimum of 15AMPs.

Not many consumers will know what their power supply's true power ratings are. I mean, if someone purchased a Dell, Gateway, eMachine or any other pre-packaged system ... who could seriously tell me what sort of power supplies are being used in these systems? Only the few would know. My guess is that they use whatever is the cheapest that's enough to sufficiently power the system.

Here's a general guide line. If you're a average user that only use the PC for emails, web surfing, office work and don't require any real hardware upgrade, then the power supply that's bundled with the system is fine. For the rest of us ... gamers, power users, overclockings and enthusiasts, some real investment is required to ensure that your system is running at tip-top condition. Don't buy a non branded PSU ... trust me it's more hassle than its worth in the long run. Go for a brand name that has good reviews and also check out the available +12V rails and TRUE power ratings.  

      

OK let's cut the chase. In this 3-Way heavy duty PSU shootout, we'll be taking a look at power supplies from Coolermaster, Gigabyte, Hiper. The PSUs have power ratings ranging from 730W to 850W. Let's  see how they perform in some real life tests.