"As for the single vs multiple rails, here is the story:
Back in Feb of 2003, Intel released the ATX12V v2.0 spec, they putted a current limitation on the rails, so no rail can output more than 240VA. Therefore, all the PSU manufacturers switched over to multiple rails. Some smaller wattage PSUs, 500W or less, had divided the rails up really badly, like 15A on one and 12A on other. So, after nVidia and ATi released SLi and CrossFire, they started to get compatibility issues, because under heavy load, i.e. when enduser playing games or 3D mark, the PSU would shut down because it draws more than what the rail was allowed. That was the time people trashed multiple railed PSUs. Some PSU manufacturers discovered the issue and made limitation higher on the rails. Some manufacturer, like Enermax Liberty, ignores the 240VA limitation completely, which did really well in the market. Finally, Intel officially removed the 240VA limitation last year. Since then, a couple manufacturers, namely PC Power and Cooling and Silverstone, have switched back to Single rail and enthusiasts loved it.
So, why did our HX Series did so well with 3 rails? Because we know what was going on and ignored the 240VA limitation. If you remember, one of the features that we had was power sharing between the rails. Even though we labeled HX as a 3 rail (because multiple rails was the trend at the time), it is essentially acting as a single rail.
For the VX, we are just labeling and saying it’s a single rail. Essentially, single rail does offer better compatibility overall with today’s power-hungered components.
Here is what our competitor PC Power and Cooling has to say about Single rail:
ARE MULTIPLE 12-VOLT RAILS BETTER THAN A SINGLE 12-VOLT RAIL?
With all the hype about multiple 12-volt rails (ads claim that two rails is better than one, five is better than four, etc.), you’d think it was a better design. Unfortunately, it’s not!
Here are the facts: A large, single 12-volt rail (without a 240VA limit) can transfer 100% of the 12-volt output from the PSU to the computer, while a multi-rail 12-volt design has distribution losses of up to 30% of the power supply’s rating. Those losses occur because power literally gets “trapped” on under-utilized rails. For example, if the 12-volt rail that powers the CPU is rated for 17 amps and the CPU only uses 7A, the remaining 10A is unusable, since it is isolated from the rest of the system.
Since the maximum current from any one 12-volt rail of a multiple-rail PSU is limited to 20 amps (240VA / 12 volts = 20 amps), PCs with high-performance components that draw over 20 amps from the same rail are subject to over-current shutdowns. With power requirements for multiple processors and graphics cards continuing to grow, the multiple-rail design, with its 240VA limit per rail, is basically obsolete."