80 Plus Bronze Sirtec made units. Nothing to see here. NZXT does pretty well with their Super Flower and Seasonic made units. Not really exciting to see them go with Sirtec on this line.
What is with this "Haswell" compatible nonsense? I may just be out-of-touch, but I know Haswell is super efficient but can't pretty much any recent PSU work fine w/ Haswell?
What is with this "Haswell" compatible nonsense? I may just be out-of-touch, but I know Haswell is super efficient but can't pretty much any recent PSU work fine w/ Haswell?
MOST PSUs out there should be fine with Haswell but unfortunately, some aren't. Enough of them to raise doubts and make Haswell certification a marketable gimmick.
This is very similar to why GPU manufacturers recommend ~500W PSU for 100-200W setups: many poorly engineered/constructed PSUs out there fail under conditions where they shouldn't.
What is with this "Haswell" compatible nonsense? I may just be out-of-touch, but I know Haswell is super efficient but can't pretty much any recent PSU work fine w/ Haswell?
I was wondering the exact same thing - what makes this PSU more "Haswell compatible" than my Seasonic X750?
What is with this "Haswell" compatible nonsense? I may just be out-of-touch, but I know Haswell is super efficient but can't pretty much any recent PSU work fine w/ Haswell?
Haswell has a new design with 2 new power states that draw extremely low amounts of power while the machine is asleep. Because the CPU only draws power from the 4-pin/8-pin connector on the PSU and doesn't draw anything from the main 24-pin that plugs into the motherboard the PSU needs to be able to hold a stable voltage when only fractions of a watt are being pulled on that connector. Some cheaper/lower quality PSU's, even newer ones, can have issues keeping the voltage stable when the power draw is that low on the P4/EPS connector. Most PSU manufacturers are just going through their lineups and validating that their designs can remain stable when Haswell chips go into these power states. It's not really a marketing gimmick, it's just another validation they have to run and a new sticker they can put on the box.
If you have an older power supply that isn't validated but are determined to run Haswell without buying a new PSU you can just turn off the C6/C7 power states in the BIOS to prevent Haswell from dropping power consumption too low and the machine will run just fine (albeit with slightly higher power consumption).
If you have an older power supply that isn't validated but are determined to run Haswell without buying a new PSU you can just turn off the C6/C7 power states in the BIOS to prevent Haswell from dropping power consumption too low and the machine will run just fine (albeit with slightly higher power consumption).
In most systems, the GPU, HDD and other loads usually provide more than enough load on 12V to meet the PSU's minimum loading requirement.
In many cheap PSUs, that minimum load is built directly into the PSU in the form of 2-5W resistors across rails and ground - horrible for efficiency but gets the job done.
I'm sure someone will eventually publish an article about Haswell's PSU compatibility. I would not be surprised if the majority of remotely good non-certified PSUs ended up working fine. I would also not be surprised if they found at least one certified unit that actually fails.