Of the 2,195 power supplies currently listed on the 80 plus website, only 186 of them are certified 80+ gold. That means just over 11% of the power supplies tested meet or beat their highest standard. Although not listed on the 80+ website yet, Sparkle Computer Corp is gearing up to release a monster of a power supply. At 1250 watts it puts out nearly double the power of most of the other 80+ gold PSU’s. That high standard most likely is the reason for the “Gold Class” name; let’s dig in and learn a little more about it.

LanOC will be one of the few national review sites to be the first to check out Sparkle's new power supply unit line, the Gold Class Series, with ratings of 1000-1250W. These 80 Plus Gold Certified units will be equipped with several features tailored for the needs on PC gaming, including super silent fans, spontaneous power loss protection, and a temperature control design mode. LanOC Reviews will be one of the few to get their hands on the first wave of review samples from Sparkle. Stay in tuned for this review, coming soon!

When it comes to power supplies, you may or may not know the name Ultra. Ultra is known for selling affordable power supplies with a few extra design elements thrown in (power supply with a window and lighting anyone?). Having heard of them or not you are going to want to take note, they released a new series of power supplies that have been getting high marks from some of our friends. With us being backed up with work, we are just now getting to testing ours out. Here is what we found out.

Thermaltake's Toughpower series of power supply's makes a big statement with its name. Oddly enough even though we have taken a look at a variety of their products we have never put the Toughpower line to the test to see how tough they really are. Today we have the chance to check out the Toughpower XT 750 watt power supply. Lets find out how it compares to other PSU's we have tested in the past.

It's hard to tell it from the reviews we have done in the past, but our friends over at Cooler Master make more than cases. In fact, they have a wide range of products including a variety of power supplies. For the past year, I have been using their UCP 1100w in my own rig and have been very happy with it. Today we are going to take a look at their new 850 watt Silent Pro M and see if it lives up to the Cooler Master name.

Given their wide spread availability including Box stores like Best Buy, Antec power supplies are well known. In the past their reputation could be called hit or miss when it comes to quality, but given our past experience with the Quattro 850 its obvious bad quality issues are in the past. The next step up from the TruePower Quattro is Antec's Signature line. Today I will be taking a closer look at an 850Watt version of the Signature line to see how it performs.

I'm not used to being spoiled when it comes to power supplies, being still somewhat new in the world of hardware I usually settle with what'll get me by. Lian-Li is a company that has had her share of the spotlight in our News section, so I jumped at the opportunity to test out one of the products I hear so much about. After seeing first-hand the quality Lian-Li invests in their products, especially power supplies in this case, I am beyond impressed. Heres how things broke down:

We have seen In Win both on here and at our lanpartys. We have seen that they produce interesting and different PC cases. Apparently, they have decided to branch out into the power supply market. Considering their involvement in the gaming community, I am excited to see what they can do in the power supply market. In Win provided us with their Commander 850 Watt power supply. We are going to install the power supply into our HTPC build to see how well the modular cable setup performs in a tight fit.

It’s hard to stand out in the power supply market, there really isn’t that much you can do to a power supply that hasn’t been done a few times at this point. Companies really have to depend on word of mouth and high wattage ratings to get people to consider their products. In the past I’ve heard good things about Antec’s power supplies, generally they weren’t considered to be top of the line but a good mid range power supply. Recently they have stepped up and are trying to change that image; one of their big gunners is the TruePower Quattro series. You can only get the Quattro series in a 850 or 1000 watts at this time, they are only looking to put these babies into high end gaming rigs. You may have noticed the TruePower Quattro 850 in our review of the Twelve Hundred; today we are going to take a closer look at it.

One of the most important PC components is the power supply. Without a good quality power supply putting out enough clean power to power your high end video card and quad core CPU, you would be stuck with a pile of useless parts. Today’s power supply’s have a lot of shoes to fill. They must put out enough power to meet any demand you will be able to throw at it, now and with future upgrades. All of the power must be clean and stable power, you wouldn’t want something to fry because you didn’t give it clean enough power. Then most recently people have been concerned about noise and aesthetics, the fans on power supply’s keep getting larger and quieter and you see things like windows and racing stripes on “gaming” power supply’s. This has also lead to the popularity or modular cabling, to me one of the best ideas to come to power supplies in years! Seasonic, one of our lans sponsors has provided us with their M12 700 watt power supply to check out.