Silverstone Intros DA1650 High-Wattage Modular PSU

[btarunr]

SilverStone today introduced the DA1650, a 1650 W high-end PSU. With a length of 180 mm, the DA1650 has some of the highest power densities on the market, more so given that it's a fully modular PSU (modular cabling adds to the length of a PSU). The extreme Wattage enables the PSU to run completely fanless up to 30% of its capacity or 495 W. Under the hood, the DA1650 features a single +12 V rail design, with a gargantuan 137.5 A rail. It features DC-to-DC switching, active PFC, and most common electrical protections, against over/under-voltage, overload (if you try to crank a truck with this thing), overheat, and short-circuit.

The SilverStone DA1650 offers 80 Plus Gold efficiency, along with ETA A and Lambda S+ certifications. The PSU is designed for 24/7 continuous operation in an environment with up to 50 °C ambient temperature. It uses a 135 mm fluid-dynamic bearing fan to keep cool. Connectors include one 24-pin ATX, four 4+4 pin EPS, twelve 6+2 pin PCIe power, sixteen SATA power, six Molex, and a Berg.



Update Aug 27th: SilverStone informed us that the DA1650 will be backed by a 5-year warranty, and priced at USD $330.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[olstyle]

Under the hood, the DA1650 features a single +12 V rail design, with a gargantuan 137.5 A rail.

Kind of ridicules

most common electrical protections

This thing can easily weld through the case and set the house on fire (or crank a truck of course) before any overload limit is reached.

Best case would be that it is actually just marketed as single rail but has multiple rails under the hood. As far as I know Seasonic has done this a few times.

 

[robert3892]

The 5V rail only has 25 amps compared with the Corsair AX1600i which has 30 amps on the 5V rail

 

[-The_Mask-]

Kind of ridicules

This thing can easily weld through the case and set the house on fire (or crank a truck of course) before any overload limit is reached.

Yeah, bad idea to make it single rail.

Best case would be that it is actually just marketed as single rail but has multiple rails under the hood. As far as I know Seasonic has done this a few times.

That's true, but the last time was around 10 years ago. First generation high wattage X series where had multiple over current protections on the 12V. Second and third generation X series had them removed to safe a couple of pennies.

The 5V rail only has 25 amps compared with the Corsair AX1600i which has 30 amps on the 5V rail

That doesn't really matter, both are more than enough.

 

[robert3892]

If you start adding up lots and lots of RGB 30amps can be more preferred over 25 amps

 

[-The_Mask-]

If you start adding up lots and lots of RGB 30amps can be more preferred over 25 amps

Much RGB stuff is powered by 12V. So you need to choose the 5V only RGB and then buy lots and lots and even some more, not really realistic. And if you manage to do it, the PSU's safety just kicks in and the PSU turns off. So not much happening then.

 

[Nephilim666]

As an ax1600i owner and a huge Silverstone fan I was excited until the inexplicable gold rating... How is this not titanium, who is the market for a bananas wattage PSU with (comparatively) poor efficiency?

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

80+ Gold at 1650W is not high-end, Silverstone.

 

[Caring1]

Not enough Amps to crank a truck, but possibly your average 4 cyl, or 6 cylinder family car as they average around 100Amps to turn them over.

80+ Gold at 1650W is not high-end, Silverstone.

More specifically 87% at 100% load is not that great.
90% at 50% load is ok, considering most home based systems wouldn't even consume that much.

 

[EarthDog]

The extreme Wattage enables the PSU to run completely fanless up to 30% of its capacity, or 495 W.

FTFY. Lets eat grandma or Lets eat, grandma.

As an ax1600i owner and a huge Silverstone fan I was excited until the inexplicable gold rating... How is this not titanium, who is the market for a bananas wattage PSU with (comparatively) poor efficiency?

Those who can't/don't want to afford the premium it fetches?

 

[-The_Mask-]

80+ Gold at 1650W is not high-end, Silverstone.

I'm quite sure that Silverstone has people that know that 80PLUS certification has nothing to do with being high-end or not. As it tells you nothing about the quality, performance and not even much about the efficiency.

 

[EarthDog]

and not even much about the efficiency.

That's exactly what the 80 Plus ratings tell you.... how efficient these are.

What ISN'T it telling us about efficiency?

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

I'm quite sure that Silverstone has people that know that 80PLUS certification has nothing to do with being high-end or not. As it tells you nothing about the quality, performance and not even much about the efficiency.

It doesn't matter if it tells you nothing about quality/performance, unless you consider it in the vacuum. There are already offerings like Corsair AX1600i or EVGA 1600T2. If it is indeed 80+ Gold level efficiency PSU, what could it possibly offer to offset this clear disadvantage vs those? Only thing I can see is significantly lower price. And then why skimp on PSU if you are already going for top of the line setup anyways?

 

[-The_Mask-]

That's exactly what the 80 Plus ratings tell you.... how efficient these are.

What ISN'T it telling us about efficiency?

Because it only tells the efficiency at three or four points and if one of those point is significant lower the rating will also be lower. Because of that it's easily possible that a 80PLUS Bronze PSU is much more efficient then a 80PLUS Platinum one in your PC. That's also the reason almost all manufacturers currently optimize the efficiency for 80PLUS instead of your PC. Which is one of the reasons we got the ATX 2.52 revision. Which states the efficiency needs to be 70% at 2% load or 70% at 10W if the PSU is 500W or lower. That's already a huge efficiency upgrade looking at some PSU's. Two things you can also look at are the average efficiency and 5Vsb efficiency. If you take all those in account and now the power consumption then you can tell something about the efficiency that matters for you.

It doesn't matter if it tells you nothing about quality/performance, unless you consider it in the vacuum. There are already offerings like Corsair AX1600i or EVGA 1600T2. If it is indeed 80+ Gold level efficiency PSU, what could it possibly offer to offset this clear disadvantage vs those? Only thing I can see is significantly lower price. And then why skimp on PSU if you are already going for top of the line setup anyways?

The Corsair AX1600i is in a totally different league than the EVGA SuperNOVA T2 1600W. Just like this Silverstone is compared two those two.

I agree this isn't an interesting PSU. But because most people buy the uninteresting PSU's, they actually target the biggest market.

 

[EarthDog]

Because it only tells the efficiency at three or four points and if one of those point is significant lower the rating will also be lower. Because of that it's easily possible that a 80PLUS Bronze PSU is much more efficient then a 80PLUS Platinum one in your PC. That's also the reason almost all manufacturers currently optimize the efficiency for 80PLUS instead of your PC. Which is one of the reasons we got the ATX 2.52 revision. Which states the efficiency needs to be 70% at 2% load or 70% at 10W if the PSU is 500W or lower. That's already a huge efficiency upgrade looking at some PSU's. Two things you can also look at are the average efficiency and 5Vsb efficiency. If you take all those in account and now the power consumption then you can tell something about the efficiency that matters for you.

I hear what you are saying. But you're only talking about idle. The 80Plus ratings are 20/50/100%. So below that, we don't know unless you reach platinum where it measures at 10%. That said 80 Plus tells you plenty about efficiency, just not, at extreme idle like you're talking about (2% load? 10W load? lol... what can actually do that? My most efficient desktops are in the 40W range). Outside of idle 'loads', I'd love to see a bronze PSU so underrated it can reach Gold or Platinum. But if you're talking between the load points, they don't drop down below that. It's a (very flat) bell curve 20-100% (10-100% on platinum) the distance between these points to meet the rating is 3% and, of course, higher with each tier. Look at the 80 Plus chart.




80 Plus tells us PLENTY about how efficient a PSU is.

 

[-The_Mask-]

I hear what you are saying. But you're only talking about idle. The 80Plus ratings are 20/50/100%. So below that, we don't know unless you reach platinum where it measures at 10%.

But what if the PSU random PSU has an efficiency of 72% at 2% load, 89% at 10% load, 91% at 20% load, 93% at 50% load, 91% at 90% load and 84% at 100% load. It would be a highly efficient PSU, but only with 80PLUS Bronze.

just not, at extreme idle like you're talking about (2% load? 10W load? lol... what can actually do that? My most efficient desktops are in the 40W range).

It's actually not extreme anymore, many modern PC's can idle around 2% load. And 10W is something a self made home server with the HDD's spinned down can easily achieve.

 

[Chrispy_]

Another silly-Wattage consumer PSU.

SLI is all but dead. The single most power-hungry 'consumer' CPU on the planet is an overclocked Threadripper 3990X and the most power it can realisically consume is bursts of up to 500W, though cooling it at 500W is a serious challenge without phase-change.

As for graphics cards, the new Nvidia 12-pin handles 300W and the board delivers 75W, so the absolute maximum that a single GPU can use is 375W.

I'm genuinely trying to work out why anyone would need a 1650W PSU for ATX components. Yes, I work with servers that can draw that kind of power but this isn't server hardware, this is consumer ATX hardware. The upper limits of what an ATX build can draw are far below 1650W The 0.001% might have machines that can pull 900W from the wall, but even then those people prefer to run seperate PSUs so that voltage drops caused by extreme power draw spikes on the CPU don't affect power delivery to the GPU and vice-versa.

 

[-The_Mask-]

The answer is workstations with multiple high-end graphics cards.

 

[EarthDog]

But what if the PSU random PSU has an efficiency of 72% at 2% load, 89% at 10% load, 91% at 20% load, 93% at 50% load, 91% at 90% load and 84% at 100% load. It would be a highly efficient PSU, but only with 80PLUS Bronze.


It's actually not extreme anymore, many modern PC's can idle around 2% load. And 10W is something a self made home server with the HDD's spinned down can easily achieve.

Does anyone care about efficiency at 2%? Not me...I cant come close to 2% of my psus's output. That said, show me a psu which has tested like the numbers you list... of the hundreds of psus tests ive read, I've seen none drop 7% efficiency at 100%. If one does, its likely trash anyway.

Show me a desktop PC that idles at 13W...(2% of 650W psu). I cant even get an apu with all ssds to do that.

Ill say it one last time.... 80 Plus tells a user most everything they need to know about efficiency. We'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[XL-R8R]

All these 1kw+(1.5kw+!) PSU's arriving again... makes me have a nostalgia trip back to 2008 and the original HX1000.

 

[Chrispy_]

The answer is workstations with multiple high-end graphics cards.

Workstations conform to specs, you don't overclock workstations and therefore the CPU uses 280W not 500W and the GPUs will likely be clock-limited to 250W per slot max to conform to OEM's TDP restrictions. Additionally, the multi-GPU workstation you are thinking of is an obsolete relic from the previous decade. Even small businesses have been farming out multi-GPU workloads to renderfarms for years now. There's a huge enterprise market sector (that I work in) that deals specifically to replace these relics you're talking about at lower cost and vastly higher performance.

Heavy overclocking is what drives power consumption way up for consumer builds and let's not ignore the obvious point; This is a consumer PSU for a consumer form-factor marketed at consumers and sold exclusively in consumer retail channels. At the very most, it's 'prosumer' for those that haven't moved up to a proper SI or OEM-built and certified workstation.

 

[-The_Mask-]

OK, if you say so. I will ask them to get rit of those other graphics card, the next time some one asks for advice...

 

[Vya Domus]

The answer is workstations with multiple high-end graphics cards.

You'd still have to struggle though to get close to that 1650W from the 12V rail alone. Let's say you use 4*250W cards + a 250W CPU, that'd be 1250W. And that's kind of a ridiculous example, at that point you might as well get some sort of cloud service for whatever it is that you need.

 

[-The_Mask-]

at that point you might as well get some sort of cloud service for whatever it is that you need.

That's not always possible. If you have a lot of data it's not gonna work for example.

So can someone please explain why people with the need of such a PSU shouldn't be able to buy or choose anything? Because that's what you all keep saying.

 

[Chrispy_]

That's not always possible. If you have a lot of data it's not gonna work for example.

So can someone please explain why people with the need of such a PSU shouldn't be able to buy or choose anything? Because that's what you all keep saying.

There's nothing to stop you from buying a 1650W PSU. It'll work just fine and you'll never come close to reaching its limits.

I'm not saying you shouldn't buy such a PSU, just that there's unlikely to be any real need to buy one so powerful. If you're buying it just to say "hey I have a 1650W power supply" to your peers and that brings you happiness then own that reason. You don't need to try and justify a niche DIY prosumer GPU-mining workstation to get this PSU. This 1650W model is overkill and excess in the same way that a Buggatti Chiron is overkill and excess. Nobody needs a Chiron but if you want to show off and demonstrate your excess wealth it's one way of doing so.