[geeks] Of video cards and power supplies...

[nate at portents.com]

> Hi Nate,
>
> What am I missing here? From the "hardwaresecrets" review of the "Antec
> Signature 650" it seems that this PSU accepts 110V AC as input (and
> has a rectifying bridge), so in what way then is it a DC-DC power
> supply?

Sorry for the confusion - the DC-DC part is where the design takes 12V DC
(which does get converted from 100-240V AC) and converts that to 5V and
3.3V.  This eliminates any cross-loading problems and increases efficiency
across all loads signficantly.

> I see that it uses Schottky Rectifiers later to regulate DC-DC
> conversion, so is that then what makes it different to 'regular' ATX
> power supplies (don't the low grade PSUs have switching power supply
> components in them then, albeit of inferior quality / underspec'd /
> without over-current-protection)?

Neither hardwaresecrets nor jonnyguru go into much detail about the DC-DC
conversion process, but xbitlabs does here, including some basic
schematics:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/antec-enermax-seasonic-psus_3.html

- Nate