Monday, September 6, 2010

Seasonic X-650, Awesome Efficiency, Quiet As A Mouse


Seasonic's own brand of PSUs and the power supplies that it makes for other brands (most notably XFX) have probably won more awards than any other. In short, Seasonic PSUs are usually a great buy, although they're often quite expensive, as in the case of th M12D-850 ($270). The Seasonic X-650 is no exception; despite being rated at 650W it retails at a fairly pricey $200.

The X-650 has just one 12V rail rated at 54A, which should be enough for an overclocked PC packed full of drives and a high end graphics card. The latter is possible thanks to the X-650 having four 6+2 pin PCI-E connectors. There are also eight SATA and eight Molex modular connectors, so the X-650 provides plenty of choice for drives.

Stability is more important, though, and the X-650 had no problems in this area. It passed all the tests thrown at it, with all its outputs remaining well within the limits of the ATX specification. What was most impressive, though, was its efficiency. This topped out at 89 per cent at 50 per cent load, and a remarkable 90 per cent at full load.

The unit was so cool running as a result of this awesome efficiency that its 120mm fan only needed to start spinning after a few minutes at 100 per cent load. This indicates that it has an awesome trick up its sleeve - in many systems, the X-650 will be silent as the fan doesn't even spin up under 50 per cent load (300W).

Over the course of a few years, the Seasonic X-650 could pay for itself, thanks to its high power efficiency. Compared with PSUs just a few years old, you'd be using up to 70W less for the same power this makes a big difference for people like us who have our computers on nearly 24/7.

Computer TechSpot

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