Power consumption

Four pin - twelve volt cable = good advise.

http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuconnectors/connectors.html#atx12v4

Multiple independent 12 volt rails PSU

A multiple independent 12 volt rails PSU has more than one 12 volt rail. Each of the 12 volt rails has its own separate circuitry. Each of the 12 volt power connectors on the PSU cables is hooked up to one of the 12 volt rails. Since this is merely a PC PSU rather than a "real" one, the manufacturers often don't feel obligated to tell you which connector is hooked to which rail.

One reason to have multiple separate 12 volt rails is to improve the load regulation and noise on the rail. When you connect an active load to a voltage rail you tend to end up with a noisy rail which jumps around a lot. It's not a nice flat voltage. It varies. The more active loads you hook to a rail the messier it gets. So building a PSU with independent 12 volt rails improves the "cleanness" of the power on each rail. Normally this is only done if you have some circuitry which is extremely picky about the quality of its voltage rails because separate rails cost more money than a single rail.

By the way, in case you're ever tempted to hook the independent 12 volt rails together (I've seen people on the Internet who think this is a good idea), don't do it. Your 12 volt rails may have different ideas about what voltage they should set their rails to. One may be quite a bit different than another. They're separate rails, after all, and they have their own circuitry which controls the voltage. They're bound to vary a bit. And if they're just a little different then you can draw lots of current when you connect them together because each of the output circuits try to force the voltage on the same wires to a different value. That causes either a nice orderly shutdown from the over-current protection or smoke and sparks. There are some power supplies which have switches which allow you to gang the rails together. Once you've set the switch properly it's okay to connect them.

http://www.playtool.com/pages/psumultirail/multirails.html

"So where's the data?" "The data? The data is in the freezer."

Conversation with a co-worker after a failed hard drive had been placed in the freezer to stiffen the bearings for one last run.

It's a really good set-up.

If the idea is to spare a little expense, then I may have few suggestions...but you pretty much went top of the line everything.

And you gave me incentive to look over comparisons/benchmarks of what GPU's are available. I'll probably never game enough to warrant anything like the Ultra, but that seems to be the direction that games are going these days.

I dunno, maybe throw in a neon" back-lit" case fan on top of the order?

;-) 

"So where's the data?" "The data? The data is in the freezer."

Conversation with a co-worker after a failed hard drive had been placed in the freezer to stiffen the bearings for one last run.