Holy Kilowattage, Batman
Extremely Expensive Roundup Two kilowatts at the flip of a switch
OCC HAS WRITTEN a dissertation on the virtues of PSUs. Dan the Man reviews E-Power’s EP-2KW PSU. If you haven’t guessed already, it’s a 2000W power supply. Right now it’s in the backchannels of distribution, but pending on the goodness of this here review, it might move into retail. Modular, stable and enough power to fry a Rhinoceros, you’ll be paying through the nose+other orifices to buy this one. Mind you, he thinks it’s worth it, but $699?? (the price of a mainstream laptop, c’mon?!)
Hyundai is a bit more than automobiles and heavy machinery. They’re actually quite well established in the display business – at least in Europe. Well, Bit-tech.net has a review of the very discrete 24-incher from Hyundai. The model number is W241D in case you’d like to google it for fun. This particular panel is built by Samsung (oh, the irony), and is based on S-PVA (super patterned vertical alignment) technology – which is marketingese for lower response times and higher contrast ratios. The choices right now are pretty limited if you’re looking for 24-inches on a budget, but the Hyundai W241D seems to come in just under the £400 bar. Read about it here.
We are always a bit sceptical of talking about companies taking advantage of fanboyism with pricey products, but... Logitech has put out something called the Squeezebox Duet, and it’s on review at CNET. It’s a digital music device that consists of an iPod-like remote and a receiver box that hooks up to your network (should we call it “hooked up” if it’s wireless?). You can playback your entire audio collection from your couch with it, using a feely-touchy remote, but you’ll have to give up a leg or a limb to buy it: $399. Gawd. That’s pretty obscene for an audio-only receiver. Feel ripped-off here.
CDRInfo – aka the lords of optical drives – have updated their review on the Asus DRW-2014L1T. This says it all – if you’re updating a review, it’s because you’ve got good cause to do it. Apparently you get a serious piece of hardware if you update the firmware to the 1.02 version. The review is here.
When you’re buying a graphics card you have two concerns: price and performance. So it kinda makes sense that someone take the time to test things on an “matching price” basis. Like this review here. 3D Gameman compares the HD 3870X2 to Nvidia’s “aging” 8800GTX. Although ATI is way ahead of the GTX in terms of manufacturing and raw power, but the GTX edges ahead of the X2 in most tests – with the exception of 3DMark06. “Why?” You ask. Well, read the dang review.
Well, the folk at Noctua have shipped off their NH-U12P to Big Bruin. The Canadians have given it the once, twice and thrice over and come up with some fine results, which you can find right here. They would’ve called it flawless, if it weren’t for the bothersome installation procedure that comes with the territory. It’s dead quiet, ultra cool and tad bit expensive.
Last but by no means least, Extremetech has updated their “Bang for the Buck” guide on the how to build a PC. Don’t mistake the idea for a cheap-o PC build, it’s really about which components are worth their weight in gold. You’ll find high-performance and high price tags here. µ
Comments
Do we really want to go this high?
Just so you know, in the movie theater I work at, the smallest screen takes 3kw just for the lamp. The most powerful can take a 6kw bulb. These things are bright enough to cause severe vision loss if you look at them directly while they are powered on. It's like having an arc-welder in there. Do we really need anything like this power for a HOME COMPUTER? Do we really need to rewire our homes for this? Do we really want to have a dedicated air conditioner for it?2KW?
In the US you can't pull 2KW from the wall without tripping a breaker, and that ignores efficiency of the PSU. Clearly there is a marketingasaurus loose that needs to tasered and brought under control.2KW
Hah, how fake is that PSU, it's just 2 PSU PCB's they put in one double-height enclosure, so you might as well just buy 2 PSU's and that way have more options in placement.People would probably be better served with a small box that sits between the 20(24) pin connectors of 2 PSU's and the motherboard and syncs the 'power good' and 'switch on' signals, which could be made for 15 dollar, perhaps by sharkoon or some such.
peltier
One use of the PSU would be to power a peltier cooler. I can see it being useful to some people.Skulltrail, SLI, multi Peltier would almost certainly need more than 1Kw
UK power!
In the UK we have 13A sockets in every room. So that's 220x13 = 2860W in total for a ring.I guess I could plug it into my Kitchen's electric cooker ring. That's rated at 20A (4400W).
:-)