500W to 550W: 12 Power Supplies Compared
by Christoph Katzer on February 20, 2009 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Arctic Cooling Fusion 550R - Overview
Arctic Cooling is famous for their CPU coolers, which were very popular in the late 90s and early 2000s. With prices of around $20-$25 and very good performance, they sold a ton of these coolers. Eventually, Arctic Cooling started selling cases with power supplies made by Seasonic. That leads into today's review, with Arctic Cooling now selling power supplies under their own brand -- a potentially lucrative proposition, provided you have a product that can stand out from the competition.
The Fusion 550 is the first power supply from Arctic Cooling, and given their previous use of Seasonic power supplies in their cases, it should come as no surprise that the Fusion is manufactured by Seasonic. The difference is that Arctic Cooling uses their own fans, which are supposed to be nearly silent while still providing good performance. Arctic Cooling mounts one of these fans on the front of the PSU, with the fan actually located outside of the casing. This fan will funnel air into the PSU, and possibly do so with less acoustic noise than the competition.
In a case of interesting marketing, don't be fooled by the Eco 80 emblem on the top of the power supply. This sticker has nothing to do with the 80 Plus certification from 80Plus.org, despite some striking similarities. We will see later that the Fusion 550 does manage to achieve 80% or higher efficiency, but since this power supply did only come with 230VAC it was not able to be certified by the 80 Plus programme. Arctic Cooling does however have a multiple input version now that comes with the real certification.
When we open the casing, we find a standard Seasonic layout. Right in front of the fan is a large heatsink that will get plenty of airflow for cooling. A plastic shroud is also present to help channel airflow into the optimal locations, further helping control heat. A heatsink on the side won't get much airflow, but since there aren't many components attached to that heatsink it shouldn't be a problem. A Nippon Chemi-Con capacitor fills the primary role, with Ostor capacitors in the secondary. Ostor might be one of the cheaper capacitor options, but we didn't encounter any problems with these components.
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whpromo - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I am a bit confused on the BFG LS550 part number. There appears to be two different ones, BFGR550WLSPSU and BFGR550WLPSU, listed on the BFG website. The former is listed in some places on the BFG website as the single 12v rail as tested here, the latter the typical 12v quad rail that is the most common BFG Tech PSU configuration. BUT when I look at retailers listing the part number for the single rail version, it's specified as a quad rail configuration and even BFG website has it listed as that on the website at http://www.bfgstore.com/ProductDetails.asp?Product...">http://www.bfgstore.com/ProductDetails.asp?Product... So where is this single 12v rail version in the wild? Was it made just for AnanTech to test?jonnyGURU - Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - link
Typo. They're actually BOTH BFGR550WLSPSU. The old one is made by Fore Point and has four +12V rails. The new one is made by Enhance and has a single +12V rail. The Enhance built one is the one reviewed here. They both have the same topology and grade of components (the Enhance built one does have a few better quality capacitors than the Fore Point built one) and in some cases the new Enhance built one actually reviewed better than the older one when reviewed by the same person:NEW: http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReview...">http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReview...
OLD: http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReview...">http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReview...
OSJF - Wednesday, March 4, 2009 - link
Hallo Christoph,I just got Tagan's SuperRock 600W edition(EU/de). I can confirm it has indeed very stable voltages.
But it's not that quite as yours obviously was. I can't hear my Sapphire 4870 1024 Toxic at all but the SuperRock's makes a hum noise.
My three year old Tagan TG420-U01 is still way less noisy then this SuperPiece of a power supply :)
greetings from good old europe
OSJF
jmurbank - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - link
There is one very important thing that you miss in your test is what computer it will be powering. If it is an Intel system, the three power supplies that you choose are OK for low to low-mid setups. For an AMD system, it will not. The 5 volt and 3.3 volt rails need to have a combined wattage of 150 watts or more. Only power supply units that you tested are OCZ and Sunbeam that provides this power requirement. You are providing false reviews and people rely on this review have to think twice. There are significantly better power supplies at this wattage level that equals or exceeds the combined power requirement for 3.3 volt and 5 volt rails. Please next time select models that are up today's standards.A power supply unit that exceeds combined power requirement for 3.3 volt and 5 volt rails is the following.
Seasonic S12 Energy Plus SS-550HT
It does not work with European standards that requires over 80% of efficiency, but it makes just about any computer to power up with out any problems at a cheap price.
Christoph Katzer - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - link
What "AMD"-system we are talking about?jmurbank - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - link
AMD Athlon processors and up.I have an AMD Athlon computer that has such requirement when I built it at the time. Also I had to recently replace the power supply in an HP computer that contains an AMD processor. The aged power supply was within the requirement. Majority of the motherboard manuals for AMD systems also states this requirement.
Christoph Katzer - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - link
"There is one very important thing that you miss in your test is what computer it will be powering."I am running the BFG LS-550 with the a Core i7-965 on an Asus P6T Deluxe with a Geforce 9800GX2 graphics card.
You can pretty much power up everything that fits the number of connectors ;)
v12v12 - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - link
Yeah I agree, the poster above is purely speculating and his post is riddled with conjecture. I've yet to see a system that wouldn't power up correctly with in that rigid spec or not. A 400/500/600W PSU etc... will power just about any modern system. <--- Notice how vague that is? But it still holds true, irregardless of the so-called "spec." Unless you're running well below the minimum REQUIRED power ratings, it's going to work buddy lol!Thank god PSU prices have started to drop to "reasonable" rates. No way in hell am I ever going to spend $100+ for a PSU unless I'm building a near-line/server machine. Luckily the gamer/addict fanboys have now priced themselves out of the common-sense market. Now we (less than zealous) can get back to building nice machines, w/o spending an arm and leg to power them with these (still) over sized square bricks called "PSUs." 2009 and we're still cramming in huge boxes with a bunch of wires surging out of them like snakes trying to escape a pit...
Lastly, Enhance has once again proven it's THE premier OEM, like I knew back in the E4300 days, while everyone else was fanboying hyped brands.
jmurbank - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - link
Sure high powered power supplies that are under spec for the combined wattage for 3.3 volts and 5 volts will work for now, Can you guarantee four to five years from now. I can guarantee the unit that I suggested will work for five years.On AMD web site it saids "..Overall current usage limitation on the power supply should not exceed a combined system power output for the +5V and +3.3V outputs."
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResou...">http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/Tec...es/0,,30...
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/SellAMDProduct...">http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/Sel..._4458_35...
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResou...">http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/Tec...rces/0,,...
strikeback03 - Monday, February 23, 2009 - link
Any idea if the fan makers plan to move on to the present and switch to SATA power connectors? I haven't used a Molex connector for anything other than a fan in a few years, and it is annoying to have to install a Molex harness just to run a fan or two.And on a related note, why does Antec use case fans which are only Molex powered? Wired to use motherboard headers is so much better, include an adapter like Cooler Master does if you think users want to run them off Molex.