A while back, power supplies were one of the ignored components in the system, and they were one of the dullest topics to talk about. These days, however, we can’t say the same anymore. Now, system builders pay close attention to the power supply they are getting and its specifications. In fact, the power supply industry has improved quite a bit over the past year or so. Manufacturers are now offering sleek looking units with much better stability at affordable prices. Not to mention the insane amount of power they are offering currently. As if 600W wasn’t enough, Thermaltake came out with their 680W model and now OCZ, along with others, have plans to introduce 700W this year. But power consumption aside, manufacturers have changed the normally corded units to "wireless", modular designs. The saga behind modular designs is to only connect the bare minimum amount of wires that are necessary for the system. Of course, the bare minimum will be on a per system basis, but it is definitely a unique and rather useful concept nonetheless.

Power supply industry is heading towards noiseless and better voltage output units to improve efficiency and increase system stability. While these changes are welcomed, manufacturers are also working on high-powered power supplies. You can very well expect to see power supplies at 900W by the end of this year, if not earlier. Now, why would someone need 900W of power? Thanks goes out to NVIDIA’s SLI solution for such preposterous power consumption. At least, this seems to be the response from many power supply manufacturers. And although that’s their explanation, we would politely like to disagree with their theory. There are users operating their SLI systems at regular 480W power supplies just fine. Not to mention the fact that some users and publications are overclocking their SLI systems with 480W and 520W power supplies without any stability issues. Perhaps the only scenario we can think of, that will cause the power supply to be the bottleneck, is if you are planning on including a tremendously high amount of components in the system.

With 900W power supplies, there are quite a few aspects that are not going in their favor. First and foremost, the electricity prices will be gorgeously high. Those of you who like to keep your systems on forever can forget about the convenience, at least if you want affordable computing experience. Secondly, such high-powered units will come with a competitive price tag. You can expect them to be just as expensive as the motherboard itself. Thirdly and finally, it simply doesn’t make sense to have such a high-powered solution for no reason. Simply put, 900W will revolutionize computing to a whole new level, which may not be for the best.

Seasonic recently introduced their S12 series of power supplies that range from 330W to 600W. Today, we will take a look at their 380W solution and see what it has to offer. The S12 series offers silent and sleek aesthetics with a stable voltage output throughout. How well does it hold its position against the rest? Read on and find out…

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