Disclaimer: Aris Mpitziopoulos is Tom's Hardware's PSU reviewer. He developed the Cybenetics certification methodologies apart from his role on Tom's Hardware. He is the Chief Testing Engineer of Cybenetics. Neither Tom's Hardware nor its parent company, Purch Media, are financially involved with Cybenetics. Aris does not perform the actual certifications for Cybenetics.
Currently the only alternative efficiency program to 80 PLUS is the ETA by Cybenetics. The same company also offers a noise certification program, called LAMBDA, which is unique because there is no other similar certification available today. Both of those programs are voluntary, like the 80 PLUS program, meaning that the PSU manufacturers and OEMs are not forced by anyone to send samples for certification. However, most of them choose to do so, since the majority of users want to know the efficiency (and noise) levels of their PSUs.
Cybenetics started its operation about a year ago and so far has certified over 160 PSUs throughout the ETA and LAMBDA programs, which mainly use 115VAC input. Given the increased demand for 230 VAC results, Cybenetics has initiated two new programs, the ETA-230V and LAMBDA-230V. The general methodologies that the new programs follow are identical to the ones used by the 115V programs, with the main differences being the 230V input and the different limits/ranges in the ETA-230V.
ETA-230V
The ETA-230V program, like the original ETA program, is based on the efficiency results of thousands of different load combinations that are obtained through a custom-made application. Cybenetics then uses a single value rating to represent a PSU’s true overall efficiency, taking into consideration Power Factor, Vampire Power, and the +5VSB rail’s efficiency. According to Cybenetics, "... the PSUs must be compliant with the CEC, ErP Lot 6 2010/2013, and ErP lot 3 2014 directives and also meet all requirements mentioned in the (EU) No 617/2013 regulation."
Those requirements are:
- 85% efficiency at 50% of rated output power;
- 82% efficiency at 20% and 100% of rated output power;
- power factor = 0.9 at 100% of rated output power.
Cybenetics further describes the certification:
The ETA-230V certification includes five levels (A++, A+, A, A-, Standard) and each certification badge is tied to the specific product through a short-URL and a QR code. Compared to the ETA certification with 115V input, the overall efficiency levels have been increased by 2%, the overall PF is lower though and the same goes for the overall efficiency at 5VSB which is 1% lower in every level. Finally, the vampire power levels are the same.
In addition, here are the efficiency targets required by CEC, ErP Lot 6 2010/2013 and ErP lot 3 2014:
LAMBDA-230V
The LAMBDA-230V program has seven levels (A++, A+, A, A-, Standard++, Standard+, Standard). You can locate the evaluation report of a given PSU via its short-URL and QR code.
In addition to the normal test results, Cybenetics also includes in its evaluation reports a number of other results and information that it deems useful, such as "efficiency and load regulation at 10%-110% load, ripple performance, hold-up time, part analysis, etc."
