Latest-gen graphics cards consume an awful lot of power, and that seems to increase with each generation. The same could be said for CPUs as well. A configuration that would be able to run the latest games in high resolutions often requires more than one graphics card. The usual 500 W PSU simply won’t be enough in such situations. We thought that it would be interesting to delve into PSUs that could power overclocked quad-core or hexa-core CPUs combined with two or more graphics cards. We borrowed a couple of PSUs from LC Power, namely Metatron series models of 1000 and 1200 W. The remaining two arrived from SilverStone and Cooler Master.

All reviewed PSUs are modular, with SilverStone Strider being the only one that can have all cables removed. The remaining PSUs have non-modular 24-pin and 4/8-pin CPU connectors, which means that you won’t be able to remove them in any way. LC Power PSUs have a 6-pin and another 6+2-pin cable for PCI-E graphics cards that is non-modular as well. In order to keep themselves as quiet as possible, all PSUs are equipped with 13.5 or 14 cm diameter fans. All PSUs bar the Cooler Master one possess multiple +12 V rails, while CM decided that a single 80 A rail is more than enough even for advanced users. The packaging of all tested PSUs is rather standard, and contains the power cable, installation screws and a short manual. Except for LC Power’s 1000 W model, all bundles also contain a bag for modular cables, and the CM one also contains vibration-neutralizing rubber, mounted between the PSU and the enclosure. The CM PSU also contains a splitter that creates two 6+2-pin connectors out of a single one, which provides power to four graphics cards simultaneously without the need for additional adapters and cables. Cable quality is in accordance with the PSUs’ price range, and it should be noted that the Cooler Master model has non-standard modular cables. Instead of wires placed inside protective nets, we have wires connected to each other to the left and right, which is very reminiscent of those old IDE cables. SilverStone was the only one not to install an on/off switch on the PSU case, which can be considered a minor flaw, since it’s always expected from high-end PSUs to have all the splendour, let alone details such as this, present on much cheaper PSUs.

You can read more about the high-end CrossFireX configuration’s components that we used for testing in the charts; our desire was to build a system that would generate considerable load on the aforementioned PSUs. We were measuring idle consumption in overclocked mode, and SilverStone proved to be the best here, since their PSU “drew” the least power from the network.

We were expecting the LC Power LC1000 Legion X2 PSU to win here, since it had the best 80 plus certificate of all present PSUs, yet that didn’t happen. The reason for this result is the fact that the SilverStone model had higher efficiency at the given load (around 70%) than all other models. The second LC Power PSU had the lowest efficiency according to the specs, yet it still had a lower consumption from Cooler Master’s 80 plus bronze-certified PSU. The explanation is the same yet again - better efficiency when the PSU isn’t loaded to the max.

One may notice that LC Power PSUs provide a somewhat higher voltage on +12 V rails in idle mode, but it was still well within ATX specifications, which means that this isn’t something to worry about. This usually means that there will be a voltage drop at load, which will still keep the voltage close to +12 V, as was the case in our tests. As far as noise and heat are concerned, all PSUs proved to be no more than warm and very quiet. The problem with noise generation is that, with all the noise made by the other components (the V10 CPU cooler and four graphics cards), it’s very difficult to isolate and distinguish the noise created by the PSU itself. Still, what we were able to notice is that Cooler Master truly justifies its name, since, in idle mode, you can only hear the fan after putting your ear above it.

The max load test defeated the LC Power 1200 W PSU - it couldn’t supply enough power to four graphics cards and was constantly shutting the machine down. We’ve tried using three graphics cards, but to no avail. The tests were only successfully completed when only two graphics cards were left in the system. We believe that LC Power engineers would’ve done much better if they put three 6+2-pin PCI-E connectors on this PSU instead of three 8-pin ones. This would eliminate the need to search for a molex-to-6-pin adapter, which isn’t supplied, in case that you install graphics cards with double 8-pin connectors. It is likely that, with appropriate cables, this PSU would be able to handle a four graphics cards-system, but we were simply unable to try that out. The remaining PSUs handled the quad CrossFireX test nicely, despite not being declared for use with quad SLI/quad CrossFireX systems, which is an excellent result.