Power Distribution
Contents
In Figure 12, you can see Silencer 610 EPS12V label stating all its power specs.
Figure 12: Power supply label.
As you can see in Figure 12, PC Power & Cooling labeled this unit as having only one +12 V rail. In fact this company has been defending single rail against multiple virtual rails for quite some time, as you can read on their website as being myth #8 about power supplies.
Inside the power supply, however, you can find two +12 V virtual rails printed on the printed circuit board, as you can see in Figure 13. According to PC Power & Cooling this marking is wrong and the power supply has really just one +12 V rail.
Figure 13: Two virtual rails marked on the PCB, even though this unit uses a single rail design.
We got this very educative explanation from Doug Dodson, founder of PC Power & Cooling:
"It is single rail. Otherwise there would be separate OCP on each output. Instead there is one single overall power protection. The silk screen on the board is wrong and should be removed since we decided to forget multiple rail designs before we ever released the product. All a reviewer would have to do is ohm it out to see it for themselves.
If it had multiple rails the power supply would shut down if one of the two rails was loaded over 20A. They can prove it to themselves that it is single rail by loading what they think is 12V1 or 12V2 to 49A and seeing that the power supply will not shut down.
The reason we left the 12V1 and 12V2 on the circuit board is we wanted to fool our competitors since we were the only ones doing single rail and we were getting much more performance because of it. Then we admitted our edge and started bragging about it. Now it looks like we fooled Gabriel since he couldn’t figure out that it’s a single rail just like we’ve been admitting since the product was released. That’s what’s really ironic!
Bottom line here is that when we make a technical claim, it’s true."
The power and currents labeled are inside the specs from the semiconductors used on this power supply.
Once again we’d like to remind that this power supply is labeled at 40° C. Usually when no temperature is stated, the manufacturers assume 25° C, which is a temperature far below the power supply real working temperature. Keep in mind that the maximum power a power supply can deliver drops as its internal temperature increases.
Now that we have all the necessary equipment to make a true power supply review we will check whether this power supply is capable of delivering its rated power or not. Read on!
