Power Amplifier Design - get inspired by pros ;)

[Thomeeque]

 5-channel (5x100W) Amplifier Add-in Card by MSI

It's in Czech, but you don't need to understand, just watch till the end (beware, first short clip is just commercial).. cool, isn't it? And it's real!!

[Ice-9]

Here is another link with some pictures and info

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/674/3/

It looks more like a tv/ cinema sound system for HTPC computers and i doubt were talking about RMS 100w (i work in computers and the stuff we sell has 1000w wrote on the boxes but in real terms there more like 1watt. Very missleading )

This does look an interesting bit of PC kit tho.

[Thomeeque]

OK, now it gets interesting! Original reason, why I have posted this (and the punch-line of the video) was, that this huge heatsink is there just to make the card look powerful for customer's eyes but cooling nothing really, just attached to bare PCB. But now, when looking to pictures from your link, mainly this one:



there maybe *is* something, what heatsink is cooling - I mean those six golden rectangles under blue electrolytes and inductors.. Is it possible that those are some specially attached ICs? 

[Sir H C]

No, those are just exposed copper.  If it is class D, 100 watt per channel, you might get 90% efficiency, so you would be cooling 50 watts of power, not a huge heat sink.  I would guess they are under the heatsink.

[Ice-9]

I did wonder when watching the video , as he removed the heatsink , where were the amps it was meant to be cooling, after a long day i thought they must be on the underside of the pcb, Lol how stupid. On reflection i guess the output devices are mounted directly on the heatsink and the 6 copper pads are the contact area for connection when the heatsink is bolted down (but that would also be poor design in my book). I think this is also what Sir H C is saying. I seriously doubt even a class d amp can deliver 500w from that one molex psu connector, but as i said before RMS is so different from PMP and other ways manufacturers decide how to describe the wattage of there amps.

Looking at the other components . ie transformer and inductors. Looks like some sort of smps voltage multipliers to supply thevoltage to drive the amps.

[km-r]

tsk tsk tsk... class D... tsk tsk tsk... what a mojo-less junkie piece...  j/k

i like the looks of the finished product.

[syndromet]

You would need a pretty big PS to suply enough juice to power this and a computer. I guess it's closer to 1 watt per channel when we're talking RMS.