Efficiency:


I see something missing here.

I believe that "lost as heat" would be a better term.

Anyway, I find that the explanation on the 12V rail maximum power supply part is rather indirect. It would probably be much nicer this way :



You may also want to label the single rails and multi-rail power supplies properly as you just jumped into telling people how to read the current reading of this 12V rail and that 12V rail.

This post has been edited by TDUEnthusiast: Dec 11 2012, 12:13 PM

The simplest way is to get another power supply that is working properly and put it into your system.

Your issue reminds me of the time when I had to deal with a motherboard that took 5 minutes to boot up. So it's possible that your motherboard is semi-faulty, considering that it was affected by lightning. Your best bet is to bring the system to a shop to test the motherboard and/or the power supply. It would be even better if you could get your friend to borrow you their parts since IT shops' diagnostic is sometimes false and is usually accompanied with new parts recommendations.

From what I remember, only the power supply itself needs to be sent for RMA .

The plus point of some of Corsair's power supply is that they offer a warranty period that's longer than the OEM's coverage, e.g the Corsair AX650 versus the Seasonic X-650/660, with 7 years and 5 years of warranty respectively. You don't exactly have to drop your support just because they don't produce power supplies themselves .

If you're looking to get your power supply to run at its highest efficiency, usually around 40% ~ 60%, then get a power supply that has about double the amount of the power your system takes at peak, though unnecessary since the efficiency difference won't be justified with the extra cost that is incurred.

To prevent any possible overloading scenarios, then about 100W should be enough under peak. If you want to be even safer then go with larger capacity power supplies for more headroom.

The GX550 power supply is not exactly a reputable power supply, so I'd suggest changing it when you're actually intending to run a CFX set-up. The calculation of 483W though is rather absurd, and I would place the theoretical peak power consumption of your system at below 350W.

Well, theoretically yes, a good 550W power supply can support two HD7850's power consumption along with the rest of your system's components, but to be safe, get a power supply with a capacity of at least 600W.