Whenever one is looking to purchase a power supply for their computer, it is extremely important to look at the power label for the unit. This will detail items such as the maximum amount of amperage supplied to each of the voltage rails as well as the total combined wattage. The label might look different than previous generation of power supplies because of the new dual 12V rails.
Most new components for PC computers have been drawing power from the 12V lines. This includes items such as the CPU, drives and fans. As the wattage requirements for these items has increased, so has the need for power supplies. The problem was that the sheer number of items drawing power from the single 12V rail was causing instability with the voltages. To solve this problem, the industry has started to use dual 12V rails or two sets of circuitry for generating 12V to the components.
This has made computing the power output of the power supply more complicated. The TruePower 2.0 lists each 12V rail has supplying 19A of power. But if all the voltage rails were to be totaled up, this would be greater than 550W of power. Each rail has the ability to get up to 19A, but the footnote below clarifies this by saying the maximum of the two combined is only 36A. In addition, the combined total for all the primary rails can only total 530W of power.
Overall, the power ouput of the TruePower 2.0 550W EPS12V should be sufficient for even higher end systems.
