Just several years ago, we were impressed to witness a 2,000W power supply for mining systems at Computex. But with arrival or AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper WX and Intel’s Xeon W-3400-series – CPUs that can devour all the way to 900W under heavy loads – as well as NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards (or, well, H100 PCIe for AI), 2,000W PSUs are no longer entirely overkill. As new processors have raised the bar on power consumption, so has the bar been raised on PSUs themselves. as evidenced by this year’s show, with several power supply manufacturers showing off new extreme PSU designs that go as high as 2,800W.
To that end, I will begin the story from the least ‘extreme’ PSU that I saw at Computex and this is Seasonic’s Prime PX-2200 80+ Platinum-badged ATX 3 PSU. The unit handled a custom-built AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX-based PC with 256 GB DDR5-4800 memory and four Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards without breaking a sweat at the trade show.
It is noteworthy that the Prime PX-2200 has only one 16-pin 12V-2×6 power connector for graphics cards, so Seasonic used adapters to power three out of four RTX 4090 boards.
Moving on to a more powerful PSU, which is Enermax’s Platimax 2400W 80+ Platinum-rated ATX 3.1 power supply. This one has two 12V-2×6 auxiliary power connectors for graphics cards, which is more than enough for an extreme gaming system. Enermax did not showcase this one in action at Computex, perhaps, because it is almost half of a year away and yet has to pass all the necessary tests.
The Enermax Platimax 2400W is set to enter mass production this December and will be available for $499, according to the company.
But what is 2,400W, if you can get all 2,800W? Well, Super Flower’s Leadex SF-2800F14HP 80+ Platinum-badged ATX 3.1 PSU can deliver 2,800W to a high-performance CPU and four graphics cards over five voltage rails. This power supply is well beyond what even a high-end desktop needs, and seems aimed more at workstation-style AI systems for research or on-prem inference. This one is expected to be available later this year for around $599, according to a representative at the booth.
It goes without saying that these extreme power supplies have a rather limited market. Not only because of the small base of systems that could ever need a PSU that could be measured as a multiple of horsepower (745W), but also because of outright mains compatibility – the standard US 15A/120V outlet can’t drive much more than a 1600W PSU. So power supplies like these are only readily usable in Europe, and in locations in the US with non-standard outlets. Then again, if you need a 2,800W PSU, you can probably afford the electrician needed to get one wired up.