A look at the FSP Booster X3
We first saw FSP's Booster X3 VGA Power at CeBIT this year. It's a PSU that slots into a spare optical drive bay, supplying power to your graphics subsystem, relieving your main PSU of that task.
FSP are targetting the somewhat cash-constrained upgrader who, instead of upgrading their existing installed PSU to power a new graphics card and the rest of their system, use the VGA-only PSU to power their graphics hardware instead. Given a low enough price, that's a decent tactic.
What FSP seem to be missing, though, is that a high-end user can also use the Booster X3 for much the same thing. There are plenty of ~400-600W supplies out there that are absolutely brilliant and don't cost the earth. Near silent and excellent for platform power, the area they're likely to fall down in is powering a high-end VGA subsystem with one or more graphics cards.
By augmenting one of those, which is likely already installed as in the first case, with an Booster X3, you get 300W for your graphics boards and your existing PSU gets platform power duty, as it was largely designed to do.
The basic ethos in either case is using the best tool for the job. Taking the VGA load off of your main supply onto something dedicated hopefully means a more stable, 'better' supply for both platform and your graphics hardware. While the main ATX supply might have four or more independant +12V rails, they're not completely independant of each other in terms of heavy load. Load one or two up abnormally and the others can suffer.
So the Booster X3 lets you move the VGA load onto it. Good idea, no? Given its origin in LCD TV tech, it's quiet and cool, sliding into the aforementioned optical drive bay. I can forsee high-end users giving it a go, instead of going for a ridiculously expensive (and ridiculous in tenet anyway) supply in the 800-1000W range. 400-600W + Booster X3 seems like a better way to go for this hack, provided the Booster X3 does what it claims.
While your author isn't convinced about the possible airflow-blocking transparent plastic covering on the front, with the FSP logo front and center, he is sold on the concept. We'll be reviewing this product of FSP R&D in due course to see what it can do.