[McSteel]

Oh boy. Where do I start...

Originally Posted by mlee49

Edit, it comes with a custom 1U 500W power supply. I'm not sure it'll hold up to any overclocking.

The thermal design of the case itself is restrictive towards OC in the first place. Besides, OC'd IB i7 won't go over 200W unless you at least watercool it with a serious loop (and not the infinite Asetek AIO rebrands out there). The PSU appears to be an FSP server design, so I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss it as incapable. Would've preferred Seasonic myself, but they're expensive and FSP can do a good job when given a proper incentive.

Originally Posted by Vinska

MEANWHILE Nvidia lists that a 600W PSU is an absolute minimum when using their Titan.

Yes, and nVidia says so because you can buy a Diablotek PSU that is declared as being 650W but really only being capable of delivering ~250W of clean (in-spec) power. You only need to look at the card's actual consumption to know how much power you need for it.

Originally Posted by Vinska

I personally think - with Titan's TDP of 250W, I suppose they can squeeze in the power budget of that PSU if they choose the right CPU + other part combination. But that means as soon as the PSU loses enough capacity (read: right after warranty period ends) the computer WILL asplode (figuratively speaking).

Originally Posted by Vinska

Even a "just fine" PSU can lose as much as 50% capacity over the years. And for PSUs that don't have much headroom - they would start giving problems eventually.

I wish people would stop believing this. A Switched-mode Power Supply does not lose it's power over it's service lifetime. Sorry for the bold-underline, but this is becoming irritating. Anyway, the only things that degrade over time, in a well-designed PSU, are capacitors. Their job is to filter out AC components that are inherent to any SMPS (from a phone charger to a triple-redundant server PSU). Another role they play is lessening voltage dips or spikes which arise due to a transient load (going from idle desktop to Furmark/IBT or similar (dip), and vice-versa (spike)). Caps will lose integrity of their electrolyte, which breaks down due to heat, and unavoidable chemical processes due to aging.

Quality Japanese caps (Nippon Chemi-Con, Nichicon, Rubycon, Panasonic/Matsushita, Sanyo/Suncon, etc.) will last you a decade without degrading even 10% of original spec. Other acceptable brands (in descending order: Taicon, Teapo, Samxon, OST) can in most cases last 5-6 years before showing signs of fatigue. The important thing to realize here is that this doesn't mean a power output reduction. It only means that the delivered power will be of lower quality, to a certain extent. A PSU that was able to output 500W will still be able to deliver that much power even after 10 years (provided it hasn't failed completely).

Qualitatively, a test would show an increase in ripple/noise and a looser transient recovery. Quantitatively, the specific figures would depend on the PSU design. If it's made with enough headroom, the difference may not be worth a mention. Say you have a PSU that outputs 500W with ~40mV @ 12V, ~25mV @ 3.3 and 5V rail of ripple+noise peak-peak, and ~300mV @ 12V dip at adding 250W of load dynamically to it, when it's already delivering 150W. After 10 years, in a PSU with NCC caps and a quality ball-bearing fan, those figures would increase to, say, 70/40/500mV respectively. This is all very much within ATX spec, though a little less desirable than the original numbers. You still can utilize the full 500W that were promised at the beginning.

Originally Posted by Vinska

EDIT: OH WAIT it says lifetime warranty. Ah boy, I can already see these units failing en masse && a wave of customer support requests after some period of time.

A lifetime warranty refers to the product lifetime, not the buyer's lifetime. It's not unusual for a lifetime warranty to actually cover less than 5 years, so it, in fact, is not the best kind of warranty out there. Also, that kind of warranty usually bears a nasty asterisk at it's end, where it says "only valid under these circumstances: ...."

The best one could hope for is that invoking the warranty 5+ years after purchase results in getting a different system as a replacement, one with similar performance specs.