Super Flower PSU Brand Entering the U.S. Market

[Ubersonic]

Agreed, but I wonder what this means for EVGA - I think super flower makes all of their high-end units?

It's unlikely to cause an issue as they tend to target different buyers.

We've had Superflower over in the EU for about a decade and when side by side with EVGA the two tend to sell the same (internally) PSU with slightly different aesthetics and different cables. The main differences are that the EVGA ones have a longer warranty and lower price whereas the Superflower self titled ones look cooler. Buyers who go for the Superflower one for the added bling weren't going to buy the EVGA over a Corsair/Seasonic/etc anyway.

Something to remember though, is that just because both sell essentially the same PSU in different casing with different modular cables doesn't necessarily mean they are both as good, I.E Superflower had issues with their high power Leadex II PSUs that didn't affect EVGA units, this was because EVGA specified industry standard 6 and 8 pin connectors for connection of the peripheral and GPU/CPU modular cables whereas Superflower used smaller LED backlit 9 pin connectors for both which due to the smaller wiring gauge saw multiple instances of high powered dual GPUs burning the connector.

 

[Valantar]

Well based on numbers it seems that more and more people are choosing the X399 for HEDT. I would like to think the number is higher for TR3 due to the TRX40 boards being decently priced considering what you get. There is also the fact that it would seem the TR 3 is focused at content creators like those working for movie studios and such. The Avengers created a nice market. I fully agree on the 3175 though as those boards are available but eye watering expensive and I have only seen Youtubers (and not all) with those boards.

Content creators don't do extreme overclocking (well, outside of the extremely few who are ocerclockers and/or cover that scene), and the 280W Threadripper chips stick very precisely to their TDP for power draw when running stock. Unless you need a very powerful GPU you can easily power a 3990X with a 500W PSU. Of course many people with a CPU like that are likely to have both one and two (maybe even three) powerful GPUs, but they run at stock clocks - if you're doing important production work on parts like these you generally don't OC, as even the chance of instability is too much if you're working toward a deadline. And even with three 275W Teslas or whatever, you're still looking at barely over 1000W if you're stressing the whole system 100%. So even if you want a massive 60% margin for peace of mind something like the Corsair AX1600i will be plenty. You do not - I think I would even say under any circumstances - need a 2000W PSU to run a HEDT workstation.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Kind of weird to see them touting their 2000W units...

They can't sell the 2000W in the U.S. because it overloads the mains of U.S. households.

There's a reason WHY they have the only 2000W available in the market... because other companies don't want to limit their volume to the EU market (considering how large the U.S. market is).

Agreed, but I wonder what this means for EVGA - I think super flower makes all of their high-end units?

Not for a while now. EVGA burned that bridge a long time ago... which is why Super Flower is now looking to sell direct.

 

[hat]

We receive requests to make 2kW PSUs but declined to do so. It is not the technology but the cost that is the problem. The market is very limited, maybe we will see a few hundred pieces globally but the R&D, tooling, safety and testing costs all must be accounted for and that must be borne by our customers across the board and we just don't see the justification for it. For now, we feel 1,500 W is sufficient for 99% of the systems and probably the 650 ~ 750 W range is good for 95% (if not more) of the systems.

Oh well... if you're gonna do something THAT crazy, it's not the hardest thing in the world to run two power supplies together, heh

 

[eidairaman1]

Agreed, but I wonder what this means for EVGA - I think super flower makes all of their high-end units?

Not totally, its like Corsair.

Evga will be fine.

We receive requests to make 2kW PSUs but declined to do so. It is not the technology but the cost that is the problem. The market is very limited, maybe we will see a few hundred pieces globally but the R&D, tooling, safety and testing costs all must be accounted for and that must be borne by our customers across the board and we just don't see the justification for it. For now, we feel 1,500 W is sufficient for 99% of the systems and probably the 650 ~ 750 W range is good for 95% (if not more) of the systems.

I have a 1250 XM2 unit here from 2014-had every intention of running 2 AMD cards in Crossfire with CPU, Ram, motherboard, gpus overclocked, but alas...

 

[kapone32]

Content creators don't do extreme overclocking (well, outside of the extremely few who are ocerclockers and/or cover that scene), and the 280W Threadripper chips stick very precisely to their TDP for power draw when running stock. Unless you need a very powerful GPU you can easily power a 3990X with a 500W PSU. Of course many people with a CPU like that are likely to have both one and two (maybe even three) powerful GPUs, but they run at stock clocks - if you're doing important production work on parts like these you generally don't OC, as even the chance of instability is too much if you're working toward a deadline. And even with three 275W Teslas or whatever, you're still looking at barely over 1000W if you're stressing the whole system 100%. So even if you want a massive 60% margin for peace of mind something like the Corsair AX1600i will be plenty. You do not - I think I would even say under any circumstances - need a 2000W PSU to run a HEDT workstation.

I was not talking about power draw but adoption of the actual platform. I fully agree that all of the systems out there right now are good with 1600 but the 3175 is not like anything else on the desktop/workstation space. Let's keep in mind that Intel used a room chiller to cool the 56 Cores CPU on that board when they "showcased" it at Computex a few years ago.

 

[EarthDog]

Let's keep in mind that Intel used a room chiller to cool the 56 Cores CPU on that board when they "showcased" it at Computex a few years ago.

That's because all cores and threads were running 5 GHz.......which is typically not something a content creator is going to do......

 

[kapone32]

That's because all cores and threads were running 5 GHz.......which is typically not something a content creator is going to do......

Of course you are right. Would you agree that you will need substantial cooling to even allow the chip to run at stock though?

 

[EarthDog]

Of course you are right. Would you agree that you will need substantial cooling to even allow the chip to run at stock though?

I'm sure a 3x120mm AIO, or 3x120mm custom loop is fine...perhaps even top-notch air. Depends on the loads... I mean, I'm cooling a 7960x at 4.5 GHz all c/t on water with like 10C headroom in stress tests and ~30C in games......3x120mm thin radiator... That is over 255W in some stress tests, note.

That said, at stock, that CPU and a 250W GPU still doesn't warrant a 1.6+KW PSU... It is only when overclocking all those cores and threads at 5 GHz do you need a chiller and something over 1000W. You used the fact that it was on a chiller to describe the power output, yet, seemed to ignore the fact that the CPU was highly overclocked...

 

[Valantar]

I was not talking about power draw but adoption of the actual platform. I fully agree that all of the systems out there right now are good with 1600 but the 3175 is not like anything else on the desktop/workstation space. Let's keep in mind that Intel used a room chiller to cool the 56 Cores CPU on that board when they "showcased" it at Computex a few years ago.

You got this backwards, your post that I responded to was again a response to my post where I said that the only possible use case for a 2000W PSU is extreme OC of HEDT parts. Increased adoption of HEDT platforms has zero bearing on this; extreme overclocking is still something that maybe a few hundred people worldwide actually do. Which is why I said it doesn't matter if more people are using Threadripper 3 or even the 3175X for more widespread use cases than XOC - running at or near stock clocks these people will never, ever need a PSU in that class. So power draw does indeed matter. An exception might be in the high speed commodity trading sector where clock speeds matter a lot and exotic cooling is "common", but again, there really aren't many builds like this in the world (and again, they'll more than likely be more than fine with something like the AX1600i). I'm also reasonably sure they prefer lower core counts as they typically clock higher (and when you're running as close to the edge like that and making money off it, spreading the workload across multiple systems is much safer).

As for what cooling is required ... sure, a 280W or higher CPU needs some serious cooling, sure - like a 360 AIO or possibly more - but how is that relevant to this thread?