Asus has introduced the industry's first SFX-L 1,200W power supply unit and it comes equipped with a 16-pin auxiliary PCIe 5.0 power connector. The PSU is designed for ultra-high-performance compact systems that use high-end power-hungry CPUs and graphics cards.
The Asus ROG Loki family of ATX-compliant modular PSUs is set to be available in 1200W, 1000W, 850W, and 750W versions, all of which come equipped with a 16-pin PCIe Gen5 auxiliary power connector that can deliver up to 600W of power to high-end graphics or other kinds of accelerators. Traditionally for high-end PSUs, the ROG Loki lineup uses low-ESR Japanese capacitors and supports 'a slew of protection mechanisms.'
Cooling is one of the primary challenges associated with designing such a powerful PSU, so Asus had to use truly high-quality components and cool them efficiently. Still, it remains to be seen how loud the PWM-controlled fan is under high loads.
As for efficiency, the highest-end 1200W ROG Loki power supply carries the 80 Plus Titanium badge (which means that it is at least 90% – 94% efficient under a 20%, 50%, and 100% load for 110V and 94% - 96% efficient under a 20%, 50% and 100% load for 230V). By contrast, the remaining PSUs carry the 80 Plus Platinum badge (which means they are at least 89% - 94% efficient, depending on input voltage).
Asus plans to start selling its ROG Loki SFX-L PSUs this year, but it hasn't disclosed when it will arrive or what the recommended prices will be. All power supplies will be covered with a 10-year warranty, whereas the RGB LED will be backed by a three-year warranty.
Although hardware developers pay close attention to the energy efficiency of their products these days, high-end parts are slowly gaining power consumption since there is cut-throat competition in the high-performance PC market. To that end, even compact gaming PCs are slowly gaining power consumption. To power such systems, all new 1,000W+ SFX/SFX-L PSUs are needed even for compact systems. It looks like Asus is the first to offer one.
One thing to note about SFX-L PSUs is that they are 3 cm deeper than SFX power supplies, so they do not fit into typical Mini-ITX cases that follow the form factor guidelines completely. Meanwhile, they will fit perfectly into gaming Mini-ITX chassis that has plenty of space inside.
