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Which Platinum-Rated Power Supply Should You Buy?

Five 550 And 600 W 80 PLUS Platinum Power Supplies, Tested
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If it’s the cream of the power supply crop that you seek, then we just looked at five different models that certainly deserve such a distinction. They all sport very high efficiency, which is what we were expecting from a round-up of Platinum-rated PSUs. 

But two of these products stand out from the crowd: Cooler Master's Silent Pro Platinum gives us unprecedented power efficiency, followed by the value-packed Rosewill Fortress 550.

However, the Enermax Platimax 600 W and Kingwin Lazer Titanium 550 W aren't all that far behind. Most of the samples we reviewed exhibited minor flaws. For example, Rosewill's Fortress 550 exceeds the maximum allowable ripple voltage on the 12 V rail, which is an indication of cutting corners in circuit design or component quality. While Enermax's Platimax also exhibits spikes on the DC rails, they're extremely short and can safely be disregarded.

Although the Cooler Master and Kingwin models don't suffer any specific flaws, we still have suggestions for both manufacturers: we’d like to see longer cables on the Silent Pro Platinum, and better soldering on the Lazer Platinum. 

At the end of the day, Cooler Master, Enermax, and Kingwin share a first-place finish in today's round-up, and prospective customers should make their decision between those three power supplies based on your own criteria (price, the number of 12 V rails, connector counts, and so on).

The price/performance winner is Antec. No other company offers such high efficiency at an entry-level price. Though the EarthWatts Platinum 550 W misses the stringent 80 PLUS Platinum thresholds by a slim margin, we think the power supply's price point offsets that to a large degree. We also determined that the 80 PLUS organization's test criteria partly differs from ours, primarily with respect to the load placed on each rail. So, we do believe that Antec deserves its Platinum logo, as long as you follow the organization's methodology. If you can live without modular cables, the EarthWatts Platinum is worth looking at, too.

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Top Comments
  • 13 Hide
    jupiter optimus maximus , February 6, 2013 5:24 AM
    What happen to Seasonic? They have the 520W fanless SS-520FL Platinum version. No PSU test is complete without a seasonic to compare to, in my own opinion.
  • 12 Hide
    Anonymous , February 6, 2013 4:50 AM
    what? no overload it until it blows test?

    and i was making popcorn.
Other Comments
  • 6 Hide
    iknowhowtofixit , February 6, 2013 4:19 AM
    Either the Rosewill FORTRESS was defective or your calibration was off for the last test. Your o-scope shots do not match those of other highly credible reviewers. Also, I'm curious of your testing methodology, but it was not listed.
  • 12 Hide
    Anonymous , February 6, 2013 4:50 AM
    what? no overload it until it blows test?

    and i was making popcorn.
  • 0 Hide
    mousseng , February 6, 2013 5:06 AM
    Is that a typo in the first chart for Kingwin's Lazer? It claims that it fails 80 Plus's 50% load spec (82% of 92%); I assume that was meant to say 92% (since that's what the chart below it shows).

    Pleasant read, though, I like PSU reviews.
  • 13 Hide
    jupiter optimus maximus , February 6, 2013 5:24 AM
    What happen to Seasonic? They have the 520W fanless SS-520FL Platinum version. No PSU test is complete without a seasonic to compare to, in my own opinion.
  • 6 Hide
    dudewitbow , February 6, 2013 5:38 AM
    jupiter optimus maximusWhat happen to Seasonic? They have the 520W fanless SS-520FL Platinum version. No PSU test is complete without a seasonic to compare to, in my own opinion.

    they asked for vendors for the PSUs. Theres the offshoot chance that seasonic declined the offer. On other sites, the 520w fanless seasonic unit was compared to Rosewill's 500w silent night unit. The seasonic unit I believe in that review barely edged out a victory.
  • 5 Hide
    cangelini , February 6, 2013 5:39 AM
    iknowhowtofixitEither the Rosewill FORTRESS was defective or your calibration was off for the last test. Your o-scope shots do not match those of other highly credible reviewers. Also, I'm curious of your testing methodology, but it was not listed.

    I believe this is still applicable to all of the power supply testing our German team does: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/psu-test-equipment,2657.html. I'm waiting for confirmation that I'm right.

    Edit: Yup, that's the correct testing equipment/procedure!
  • 0 Hide
    Anonymous , February 6, 2013 5:47 AM
    Dun dun dun..................... no acoustic performance measured, the only reason some people buy high end PSU's.
  • 5 Hide
    sebbesapa , February 6, 2013 9:44 AM
    WOW! Thanks a bunch for including the 25watt "Low-Power PC" efficiency test! All other reviewers stop @ 20% load witch is not "idle" or "low load" at all. :-)
  • 1 Hide
    sanilmahambre , February 6, 2013 9:44 AM
    Power supply unit is where a system builder cannot use a word "BUDGET"
  • 3 Hide
    jaideep1337 , February 6, 2013 10:08 AM
    I don't understand
    Why is the 80 plus spec officially test by having more load on the 3.3v and 5v rails?
    Clearly loading the 12v rail would give us a better overall image
  • 5 Hide
    dirtyferret , February 6, 2013 10:08 AM
    no internal build break down? i don't think jonny guru and hardwaresecrets have anything to worry about in competition.
  • 1 Hide
    jaquith , February 6, 2013 10:59 AM
    Interesting, IMHO the most important aspect is 'Ripple Voltage' @ Rated Load. The only mention I see is a vague reference in your conclusion page.

    Never mind I see the ripple data buried in the individual tests. It would have been better in the summary side-by-side tests.

    Nice article.
  • 0 Hide
    iknowhowtofixit , February 6, 2013 11:52 AM
    cangeliniI believe this is still applicable to all of the power supply testing our German team does: http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 2657.html. I'm waiting for confirmation that I'm right.Edit: Yup, that's the correct testing equipment/procedure!


    Sorry!

    The page you requested couldn't be found
  • 7 Hide
    Anonymous , February 6, 2013 12:01 PM
    Quote:
    Power supply unit is where a system builder cannot use a word "BUDGET" "CHEAP"


    fix'd that for ya :) 
  • 0 Hide
    nix327 , February 6, 2013 2:18 PM
    Sometimes in reviews like these there've been products that produce disappointing results compared to well known manufacturers. So why do they send their stuff in the first place knowing that their product is of lower quality than the competition. Do they gain something from these reviews? Just curious.
  • 3 Hide
    sandman21dan , February 6, 2013 2:53 PM
    By reading this article, i just thought of a great idea and help for us users, a Best PSU for your money guide, i think that would be incredibly helpful since PSUs are hard to buy and to know wich ones are really good, of course i know that is a lot of work, but it could be like once or twice a year and not monthly like Video Cards and CPUs, what do you think about it?
  • -1 Hide
    Azn Cracker , February 6, 2013 3:39 PM
    I guess these psu's are only for bragging rights. For 120, you can get good 700-800w psu
  • -1 Hide
    cangelini , February 6, 2013 3:40 PM
    iknowhowtofixitSorry!The page you requested couldn't be found

    Sorry, take the period out of the end of the URL.
  • 7 Hide
    JPForums , February 6, 2013 4:29 PM
    Quote:
    But two of these products stand out from the crowd: Cooler Master's Silent Pro Platinum gives us unprecedented power efficiency, followed by the value-packed Rosewill Fortress 550.


    Quote:
    Most of the samples we reviewed exhibited minor flaws. For example, Rosewill's Fortress 550 exceeds the maximum allowable ripple voltage on the 12 V rail, which is an indication of cutting corners in circuit design or component quality.


    Your priorities are obviously backwards. Rosewill's entry, by your testing, failed to meet ATX spec by producing an unacceptable amplitude of ripple on the 12V rail. By definition, this is a fail. This isn't a minor flaw, this is violating spec. A failure can not stand out from the crowd (at least in a positive sense). Now, there are other posters here that dispute your results, but you don't have that luxury. Both your results and summary comments indicate that this unit is a failure no matter how good the efficiency, price, or other metrics look.

    You can argue the importance of efficiency versus DC output quality all you want when the unit meets spec, but all of the components in your system rely on PSUs to actually meeting spec in order to function properly. Without meeting spec, there is no way to guarantee components will work properly. In fact, failing to meet spec pretty much guarantees that some component somewhere will not work properly. I've seen enough devices (granted poorly designed) fail to work properly with PSUs that had ugly DC quality, but were technically within spec to recommend one that is out of spec.
  • 0 Hide
    slomo4sho , February 6, 2013 4:59 PM
    I would like to see a fully modular PSU review.

    Also, the difference in cost between the Gold and Platinum rated models seems to negate the power savings one would realize by going with a Platinum model. Since I do run a few of my machines 24/7, I am curious to see where the efficiency lies for low power consumption for a variety of 80+ certified models as this level of power consumption occupies a large majority of the up-time (70+%).
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