TheWolf85
03-11-2007, 10:53 PM
Ever buy one of those games that turned to out be way more expensive than $50 because you had to upgrade your computer just to play the damn thing? Company of Heroes is one such game to me. I've updated my video card (from a x800Pro to a x1650Pro), added some more memory (doubled my memory with 2x512MB Crucial sticks), and now it looks like I'm going to need a new PSU to power it all. This game is getting pricy...
I've been doing some reseach on PSUs and the whole "rail" thing is utterly confusing to me. I don't understand what multiple 12V rails physically mean. If there are more than one rail, does that mean that there are more that one cable attached to each 12V rail? I think I understand that the devil with PSUs is that the actual amperage delivered by each "rail" is a lot more decieving than what is being advertised. Most of the time only the MAX output is listed, while the steady state currently is usually about 85% of the max. If there are multiple rails, the output of each rail is limited by the total amount of amperage allowed out of all the rails together (IE, in a PSU with two rails with a max output of 20A each and and total combined output of 35A, one rail is limited to only 15A if the other rail is running at 20A). I don't understand why this is bad, I just get the sense that it is. Again, this stems from me not understanding what a rail really means. If someone could explain this to me, I would be very apprecative. I really want to play a whole game of COH sometime within the near future and I don't want to waste any more money. Thank you.
I've been doing some reseach on PSUs and the whole "rail" thing is utterly confusing to me. I don't understand what multiple 12V rails physically mean. If there are more than one rail, does that mean that there are more that one cable attached to each 12V rail? I think I understand that the devil with PSUs is that the actual amperage delivered by each "rail" is a lot more decieving than what is being advertised. Most of the time only the MAX output is listed, while the steady state currently is usually about 85% of the max. If there are multiple rails, the output of each rail is limited by the total amount of amperage allowed out of all the rails together (IE, in a PSU with two rails with a max output of 20A each and and total combined output of 35A, one rail is limited to only 15A if the other rail is running at 20A). I don't understand why this is bad, I just get the sense that it is. Again, this stems from me not understanding what a rail really means. If someone could explain this to me, I would be very apprecative. I really want to play a whole game of COH sometime within the near future and I don't want to waste any more money. Thank you.