Power Supply Roundup: 650W-680W

Comparison: Cable Length

The comparison of cables shows an average of 50cm (20"). Hiper added 2" and be quiet! yet another 2". The majority of the manufacturers stick with 50cm, which is sufficient for most cases. Of course, other factors such as whether you have a top-mounted or bottom-mounted PSU can impact your cable length requirements. Many cases have space near the PSU up top where you can easily tuck away any unused or overly long cables, and this can be important since long cables can disturb and cooling if you're not careful. Those who have cases where the PSU mount on the bottom will likely want longer cables, however, as reaching all the way to the optical drives and motherboard connections can be something of a stretch. All the power supplies feature a 4-pin and 8-pin ATX/EPS plug to supply the CPU with additional power.

Looking at the PEG connectors, we see major differences between the power supplies. Antec comes with one 6-pin and one 6/8-pin connector, which is sufficient for an SLI/CF setup so long as the graphics cards have require one 6-pin jack each. Alternately, you could use both connectors for one graphics card if the 8-pin connector is needed (i.e. Radeon HD 2900XT).

Be quiet! provides two 6/8-pin PEG connectors and an additional 6-pin EPS connector needed on special motherboards. The length is 60cm/24", which is the longest offering in our roundup today. Hiper takes a different approach and attaches two connectors to each harness. Users get one 6-pin and one 6/8-pin connector (6-pin with two extra pins to convert it to an 8-pin PEG connector) on each of the two harnesses, which is enough to support even a high-end SLI/CF setup.

We mentioned Seasonic already and have to point out that the power supply has been in the market for quite some time, so it's not really up-to-date anymore. It only features two 6-pin PEG connectors, which is fine provided you don't intend to buy any HD 2900 XT cards with an 8-pin jack on it (to date the only GPU that requires an 8-pin connector, though that will probably change in time). Thermaltake offers two 6-pin connectors and one 8-pin connector.

Xigmatek has the best offering, providing two 6-ping and two 6/8-pin PEG connectors. The cable length of 50cm/18" is fine for most cases available. We have to give Xigmatek credit for offering more connectors with a 650W power supply than others. While there are higher-rated PSUs out there that offer many connections, the fact is that a good quality 650W PSU (Ed: not just any old 650W PSU!) is more than enough to run most high-end systems; only systems with numerous hard drives, serious overclocking, and Tri-SLI are likely to break into wattages above 650W.