Phanteks' latest product, the Power Combo, promises to make it easier to run two power supplies on a single PC, just in case today's 1.5KW-plus PSUs weren't beefy enough for the components in your gaming rig.
Phanteks' new Power Combo board is designed with a single purpose in mind: to make it possible to easily and, more critically, safely connect two independent power supplies to a single motherboard. While dual power supplies are common in the server world, they're somewhat more rare for desktop machines - and homebrew hacks typically involve slicing up cables and soldering things together. The Power Combo does away with this: simply hook two PSUs up to the board, then run cables from the board to your motherboard's power inputs - though physically fitting two power supplies into your case is an exercise left up to the reader.
The reasons for doing this, Phanteks claims, are twofold. The biggest reason, and the reason for seeing dual power supplies in enterprise-grade systems, is redundancy: if a single power supply dies in such a way that it doesn't inject a massive surge into the motherboard - in other words, simply stops giving out any power - the system will continue to run perfectly normally, minus any devices which are directly connected to the failed power supply. Should you be spreading the load of PCI Express devices like graphics cards between the two PSUs, though, expect your system to crash hard when one of the cards suddenly loses power.
The second reason is quite literally power: the two power supplies run side-by-side, both providing power to the connected motherboard. With other devices split between the two supplies, it's possible then to roughly double the possible power draw - though you'd have to have a pretty beefy rig to beat the kilowatt-plus capabilities of modern power supplies in the first place. Using the Power Combo, Phanteks claims, it's possible to draw up to 1,170W through the motherboard power connectors - 910W 12V, 160W 5V, and 100W 3.3V.
Phanteks has announced that it will launch the Power Combo later this month, priced at €39.90 (around £28 excluding taxes), with more information available on the official product page.
Phanteks' new Power Combo board is designed with a single purpose in mind: to make it possible to easily and, more critically, safely connect two independent power supplies to a single motherboard. While dual power supplies are common in the server world, they're somewhat more rare for desktop machines - and homebrew hacks typically involve slicing up cables and soldering things together. The Power Combo does away with this: simply hook two PSUs up to the board, then run cables from the board to your motherboard's power inputs - though physically fitting two power supplies into your case is an exercise left up to the reader.
The reasons for doing this, Phanteks claims, are twofold. The biggest reason, and the reason for seeing dual power supplies in enterprise-grade systems, is redundancy: if a single power supply dies in such a way that it doesn't inject a massive surge into the motherboard - in other words, simply stops giving out any power - the system will continue to run perfectly normally, minus any devices which are directly connected to the failed power supply. Should you be spreading the load of PCI Express devices like graphics cards between the two PSUs, though, expect your system to crash hard when one of the cards suddenly loses power.
The second reason is quite literally power: the two power supplies run side-by-side, both providing power to the connected motherboard. With other devices split between the two supplies, it's possible then to roughly double the possible power draw - though you'd have to have a pretty beefy rig to beat the kilowatt-plus capabilities of modern power supplies in the first place. Using the Power Combo, Phanteks claims, it's possible to draw up to 1,170W through the motherboard power connectors - 910W 12V, 160W 5V, and 100W 3.3V.
Phanteks has announced that it will launch the Power Combo later this month, priced at €39.90 (around £28 excluding taxes), with more information available on the official product page.
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