Super Flower Leadex Platinum 2000 W

[crmaris]

Super Flower meant to rock the boat and has without a doubt done so with the Leadex Platinum 2 kW that is only compatible with 230 VAC mains since a normal 115 VAC socket cannot deliver the amperes the unit requires at full load.

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[damric]

Outstanding review. What a beast!

 

[avatar_raq]

Is there a demand for a 2KW PSU?

 

[buildzoid]

Uh 2000W is still not enough for 4 way TITAN-X on LN2. K|NGP|N 4 way TITAN-X

 

[xorbe]

Uh 2000W is still not enough for 4 way TITAN-X on LN2. K|NGP|N 4 way TITAN-X

It was something insane like 1300W per Titan X under LN2 right? I see 4 evga PSUs in the screenshot.

 

[crmaris]

power consumption can go very high under extreme overclock conditions.

 

[buildzoid]

It was something insane like 1300W per Titan X under LN2 right? I see 4 evga PSUs in the screenshot.

Yeah at 1.7V the TITANs managed to burn out the cap bank on a couple E-powers and tripped the 900A OCP of the G-Power.

 

[nem]

2kw soon will see psu to powering the DELOREAN to MatyMCfly can back to the Future....^^ROFL

 

[Bill_Bright]

I feel TPU is putting too little emphasis (or none at all! ) on Hold-Up Time performance in your PSU reviews. The review clearly states this is a "very important PSU characteristic" yet when this Super Flower "Platinum" PSU fails in this "very important" area, and IMO, fails miserably (13.5ms is almost 16% off from the required "minimum" 16ms) this failure is almost entirely overlooked in the conclusion - barely a mention in the Thumbs-down section - not as a "Failure", but just "Lower than 16ms".

I note the Conclusion commentary does not even mention this "failure" but goes on to say,

This PSU's only major downside is its fan's noise output as it spins at high speeds at even light loads.

How can a characteristic be "very important" then not be considered a major (or even minor) downside when a PSU fails at this test???

How can a noisy fan be, not just a but the only "major" downside when the PSU cannot even pass this "very important" test?

How can this "very important" failure not significantly impact the score?

And let's face it, the ATX Form Factor standards call for very conservative minimums (see my "by comparison" comment on Ripple below).

I note for many users researching PSUs, their data is worth much more than the hardware. And having full time access to the data is even more important, if not "mission critical". And while maybe rare, corrupt hard drives and lost data as a result of a sudden loss of power is not unheard of.

Power "dips" and "sags" (opposite of spikes and surges) are just as common as spikes and surges. Sadly, not everyone uses a "good" UPS with AVR to compensate (in a timely fashion) for these power anomalies. 2.5ms can mean the difference between uninterrupted data access and mission downtime while the system reboots. Or worse, excessive mission downtime and lost business while HD corruption is repaired and data backups are restored.

By letting Enermax, Rosewill, Antec, Super Flower, EVGA and other "failures" slide, you are sending them the message that this "very important PSU characteristic" is not "very important" after all. And so they have no incentive to do anything about it.

I say use the power TPU affords you and hold these PSU maker's feet to fires and make them accountable for FAILING to even meet ATX standards. Force them to at least meet ATX's very conservative minimums if they want a good review.

By comparison, I would like to see Hold-up Time treated with the same vigor and regard (or pretty close to it) as the critically important Ripple criteria. I note it is not uncommon to see criticism, or at least expressed disappointment for "mediocre" ripple values even when they are still well within the very conservative 120mV p-p and 50mV p-p ATX standards!

If Hold-up Time is a "very important PSU characteristic" as you claim it is, and IMO, it certainly is, then treat is as such in your scoring and conclusion commentaries so the PSU makers will do something about it! You have the power, I say use it!

Thanks for listening.

 

[xorbe]

Isn't the hold-up rating at full load? Get a UPS if it's that important.

 

[crmaris]

13.5 ms hold-up time for a 2 kW unit is still very good although it is less than 16 ms. At such high capacity units I usually start to protest loud when it falls below 12 ms (always at full load and not at 80% load where some companies measure hold-up time)

If I didn't want to emphasize on the hold-up time then I would simply didn't measure it, since currently I am among the very few reviewers that conduct this tricky test.
As for the scoring, I certainly include the hold-up test and I do so also in the relative performance score.

Also please be sure that from the time I started measuring hold-up time many manufacturers changed tactics and improved their designs. However since I pay attention to all user comments I will try to be even more sensitive on this matter in the epilogue.

 

[Frick]

Good grief.

 

[Bill_Bright]

since currently I am among the very few reviewers that conduct this tricky test

That is exactly why, as an IT consultant and custom PC builder for businesses and professionals and gamers here in "Tornado Alley", I pay attention to, reference, and recommend your reviews!

Also please be sure that from the time I started measuring hold-up time many manufacturers changed tactics and improved their designs.

Some manufactures may have, but clearly with this PSU, SuperFlower didn't get the memo.

However since I pay attention to all user comments I will try to be even more sensitive on this matter in the epilogue

Much appreciated. Thanks!

Isn't the hold-up rating at full load? Get a UPS if it's that important.

That's the rating minimum, but the load at the time of the "real-world" power loss does not really matter. Note a power dip below 90VAC (180VAC with Vin 230VAC) lasting just 16ms is much faster (a shorter period of time) than the flicker of the lights. So a dip in power below 90VAC lasting just 15ms with this PSU would cause it to shut down, crashing Windows and any open program and documents very ungracefully - with the potential to corrupt the HD for a significantly longer downtime than a simple reboot - without the user ever knowing why the computer crashed.

This may not be important to many enthusiasts and gamers, but it is to professionals (architects, CAD/CAE designers and professional photographers, for example) who rely on such stability for other reasons than personal entertainment.

And yes, I do recommend and urge EVERY computer be on a "good" UPS with AVR. All my computers are, and so is my expensive (to me) big screen TV and home theater A/V equipment. But for some, it is just not in the budget, or they just don't appreciate the need for a "good" UPS - until it is too late (like having a good backup strategy, and using it!).

Also, note I keep saying "good" UPS. Like PSUs, not all are created equal. Some budget models take 10ms to detect the threshold breaking anomalies and "cutover" to backup power. That would kill that Enermax 1500W PSU above that received a 9.0 Highly Recommended rating.

 

[Frick]

And yes, I do recommend and urge EVERY computer be on a "good" UPS with AVR. All my computers are, and so is my expensive (to me) big screen TV and home theater A/V equipment. But for some, it is just not in the budget, or they just don't appreciate the need for a "good" UPS - until it is too late (like having a good backup strategy, and using it!).

It's not universally applicable advice though. Where I live they wouldn't do a damn thing.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Where I live they wouldn't do a damn thing.

That's a fallacy. It does not matter where you live. Surges and spikes, dips and sags can enter the home from the grid whether you live in Europe, Asia, South Africa, the US or on the moon. Whether you have above ground or buried service. Whether you live in a brand new community or an old established neighborhood. Plus these anomalies can originate from within the home too from a malfunctioning device on the same circuit like a faulty microwave oven, or $15 1500W hair dryer from some obscure Chinese factory using under-aged, unskilled labor with parts from a similar factory upriver. Or by human error.

It is a mistake to assume because your country runs off 240VAC or has a stable power grid, or a brand new infrastructure, or no severe weather that you are immune to power anomalies.

And until now, I didn't even mention total power outages.

While your grid may be cleaner and more stable than most, no one is totally immune to such issues.

 

[xorbe]

It's not universally applicable advice though. Where I live they wouldn't do a damn thing.

Yeah, I wanted to know what this meant. Why wouldn't it work?

 

[Frick]

That's a fallacy. It does not matter where you live. Surges and spikes, dips and sags can enter the home from the grid whether you live in Europe, Asia, South Africa, the US or on the moon. Whether you have above ground or buried service. Whether you live in a brand new community or an old established neighborhood. Plus these anomalies can originate from within the home too from a malfunctioning device on the same circuit like a faulty microwave oven, or $15 1500W hair dryer from some obscure Chinese factory using under-aged, unskilled labor with parts from a similar factory upriver. Or by human error.

It is a mistake to assume because your country runs off 240VAC or has a stable power grid, or a brand new infrastructure, or no severe weather that you are immune to power anomalies.

And until now, I didn't even mention total power outages.

While your grid may be cleaner and more stable than most, no one is totally immune to such issues.

But it does matter. These things are good if you're running super sensitive equipment in hospitals and such (around here, and I actually know a story in which a UPS would have solved the problem), but for me it would actually be pointless. And for the majority of the population where I live. Harmonics is a bitch (those induction plates are hopeless), but it's supremely rare here for it to be a problem and the only universal solution to that is to use UPSs for EVERYTHING. If you live in the rural US and you know power is an issue, it's sound advice, but it is not universally applicable. It just isn't feasible to have a UPS to every single computer here. I'm obviously not totally immune, but it's not enough for it to be an actual issue, and hence

Yeah, I wanted to know what this meant. Why wouldn't it work?

It would work, but it wouldn't have anything to do. It would be a waste of money.

 

[Bill_Bright]

But it does matter.

No, it really doesn't matter where you live. As you correctly noted, you are not totally immune even where you live. So what matters is how much value you personally put uninterrupted uptime for your computer, and protecting your hardware from excessive surges and spikes. Surges and spikes can occur everywhere, not just in rural US communities or poor countries.

All it takes is one sudden power outage or significant power dip (and some bad luck) to corrupt a hard drive and render a computer unbootable. So what matters is how important preventing that possibility is for you personally.

And again, these destructive anomalies and outages don't have to come off the grid or be weather related. They can originate from within your own home from some malfunctioning device, a tripped circuit breaker, maintenance, or other causes.

An UPS is like car insurance. You hope you never need it. And most people never will. But when you do, you are glad you have it.

Do you use a surge and spike protector? Note they are little more than fancy and expensive extension cords because they do nothing for dips and sags, and for excessively high surges and spikes, they just kill power. If you feel the need for a surge and spike protector, then the same need calls for a "good" UPS with AVR.

 

[R-T-B]

All it takes is one sudden power outage or significant power dip (and some bad luck) to corrupt a hard drive and render a computer unbootable.

I have heard this reported numerous times, but I really have yet to encounter any evidence supporting it. Nor have I ever encountered an HD that has had a single bad sector from power loss, and I've done everything from pulling the power cord on live HDs, to actually living in some locations with totally sketchy power.

You can get an HD to need to replay it's journal via CHKDSK or equivalent of course, but a bad sector? Never seen it.

PS: I still live in a location with sketchy power actually, but I finally invested in a good UPS with AVR because I got sick of my poor gaming self being interrupted right when I hadn't saved my game for HOURS... That, and AVR is just good to take the burden off your PSU in any case... No PSU really likes inconsistent voltage, though most good ones CAN deal with it to an extent.

 

[Bill_Bright]

It is not like purposely running into a wall to duplicate an accident.

I am sure you have heard you should always shut Windows down "gracefully" by going through the start menu instead of just pressing the power button. That is for the same reason; to avoid OS corruption. Windows needs a few seconds to properly close all its open files, delete temporary files and update the master file tables (MFT) accordingly.

When the power is killed suddenly, many critical system files remain opened, and remained marked in the MFT as opened, and can become corrupted, potentially corrupting the OS or other open programs. And if the drive is in the middle of writing to and updating the MFT at the time of the power loss, that can corrupt the boot sector too, making the disk unbootable until the MTF is either repaired, or in extreme cases, the drive is reformatted.

...but a bad sector? Never seen it.

Ummm I am 100% certain I have NEVER said dirty power can cause a "bad sector"!

I am not sure where you got that from, but I am sure it was not something I said. A "bad sector" is typically the result of something "physically" wrong with that storage location on the platter(s) that prevents the magnetic particles from properly aligning into their representative 1s and 0s orientation. This can be due to a microscopic impurity in the materials, a microscopic scratch or imperfection from the manufacturing process, or perhaps the read/write head banging into the platter surface when bounced too hard during rough handling - that is, through some form of "physical abuse". But not from a sudden loss of power.

Chkdsk (with the /r switch) can attempt to recover bad sectors, but typically chkdsk will attempt to recover any data, and if unable to repair that sector, mark it as bad in the MFT so the drive will not attempt to use it again.

I finally invested in a good UPS with AVR because I got sick of my poor gaming self being interrupted right when I hadn't saved my game for HOURS... That, and AVR is just good to take the burden off your PSU in any case... No PSU really likes inconsistent voltage, though most good ones CAN deal with it to an extent.

I couldn't have said this better.

You are absolutely correct that no PSU likes inconsistent power. And you are also correct that the better ones have superior regulation and filter circuits to regulate minor voltage variances and suppress minor anomalies. But just like the brakes on your car, the more you use them, the faster they wear out, even if you never stomp on them. A granite bolder will eventually crack if you keep tapping on it with a tiny rock hammer, or wear away if you keep blowing sand particles at it.

So a good UPS with AVR helps isolate your power supplies from these power anomalies, which in turn, allows your PSUs to maintain consistent power to your sensitive components, and [hopefully] will allow the PSU to age more slowly. A UPS will not prevent PSU aging as all PSUs will fail - eventually. But hopefully not prematurely from the constant stress of compensating for dirty power coming off the grid, or through your facility wiring, or both.

The only downside is UPS batteries have to be replaced about every 3 years - but fortunately, that is an easy user task, and not too expensive if you shop around.

 

[xorbe]

(True, will avoid mini mod.)

 

[Bill_Bright]

Just ensuring on the same page because the comment was confusing. Nothing personal taken.

But instead of wasting everyone's time with a post that has the sole intention of criticizing others while adding no technical value to the discussion whatsoever, I might suggest you simply use the report button if you think I've said something offensive. Or just ignore it.

 

[R-T-B]

I thought you meant bad sectors in place of simple corruption... my mistake. Misread your post Bill.

 

[Bill_Bright]

No big deal. Thanks!