There was a time, many moons ago, when you could reliably boost your PC graphics performance simply by shoving as many GPUs as you could fit (and afford) inside the case. In the heyday of Nvidia SLI and AMD Crossfire, there was a need—or at least a demand—for such excess.
SilverStone’s new HELA 2050R feels like a throwback to those times, except remixed with the latest high-powered tech.
The HELA 2500R doesn’t just pack an eye-popping amount of power at 2,500 watts—it also comes with all the modular connections you’d need to actually use that sinful amount of electricity.
And that includes four 12V-2×6 connections, the kind that are used to power the biggest and baddest cards on the market (like the RTX 4090), plus seven 8-pin connections (for other CPUs and GPUs) and another four 6-pin SATA connections (just for the hell of it).
That’s a ridiculous amount of hardware and far from practical for gaming since SLI is indeed a thing of the past for most applications. If you’re using this power supply, you’re either the last Bitcoin miner on the planet who’s actually trying to find new coins or you’re building some kind of industrial or academic number-crunching beast out of off-the-shelf components. (Or just spitting out a bunch of AI text, I guess.)
As Tom’s Hardware notes, you can’t even get 2,500 watts of electricity out of most American wall outlets. You’ll need the kind of 240-volt dedicated outlet that’s normally reserved for large home appliances (like my all-in-one clothes washer and dryer).
But at least you’re getting some kind of efficiency out of it with a Cybenetics Platinum certification. And with a depth of just 180mm, it should fit in most standard ATX cases. (Good luck finding one that can hold four 4-slot GPUs, too. SilverStone’s Alta D1 might do.)
There’s no word on price, but with its debut at Computex, the HELA 2500R should be available to buy before the end of this year. For sake of comparison, the current flagship HELA 2050R is $600 on Amazon.
