Do # of 12V rails matter?

[x88x]

Yup, those'll work just fine. Though, keep in mind, if you're going for keeping the colors, SATA also uses a 3.3V (orange) line.

[Fuganater]

Meh. Since its 100' I'll just get black. No point in spending $100 when I could just spend $20

[AmEv]

Then sleeve 'em the right color???

[Fuganater]

Everything will be sleeved Orange.

[Fuganater]

OK so I bought the 1000W OCZ one... 80 Gold over 80 Silver. At least I know I will never need to worry about power in this thing. + 7 year warranty isn't too bad.

Thanks for the help!

[Undead]

Under extreme stress, multiple rail PSUs tend to be a little more stable as a ripple in a single rail has less chance of affecting your overall stability. Having said that, if you're pushing a PSU that hard, you have the wrong PSU anyway.

Single rail PSUs have one major advantage over multi-rail ones, and that is that you don't have to consider load balancing at all - again, if you're that close to the threshold you should probably be looking for a different more powerful unit anyway...

There is zero difference in performance between single rail and multi rail, as they're 99% identical.

As for what you said about load balancing, read below.

I've read before that multiple 12V rails were nothing but a marketing gimmick. What matters is total amperage, which is why companies like Corsair have high-end power supplies with single rails and massive amperage output.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

You have it the wrong way round, single rails are actually a marketing "gimmick", which was spread to most "enthusiasts" by PC Power & Cooling. The idea was that one big single rail was better for powering high end graphics cards and that a multi rail would fall short because of the low amp ratings on each rail. That was actually true 5+ years ago, where multi rail designs weren't as well made, because you would sometimes end up overloading one rail and tripping the PSU's OCP, which would then shut it down. That isn't true for modern multi rails though, as load balancing between rails and such is done automatically.

I actually made a post about single/multi rails a couple months back, which explains it a little: http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/f...2&postcount=36

[Twigsoffury]

OK so I bought the 1000W OCZ one... 80 Gold over 80 Silver. At least I know I will never need to worry about power in this thing. + 7 year warranty isn't too bad.

Thanks for the help!

well if it makes you feel any better my E80+ gold enermax power supply has been running just about every day since 2004 or so. i'm on my fourth set of components with it and its still going.

[Fuganater]

Good to hear. I've only ever lost 1 PSU due to a power surge.