Four 80 PLUS Gold Power Supplies Under 450 W, Reviewed

By Patrick Afschar
published

Although high-wattage power supplies get most of the glory, we take our hats off to small, efficient solutions offering more practical output. We take four sub-450 W PSUs and run them through our benchmark suite to see if we can determine a winner.

Going Green: High-Efficiency Power Supplies

In the automotive world, being green is all the rage. No manufacturer wants to be caught without at least one model aimed squarely at that demographic. And sure, the government gets involved by compelling the industry to move toward cars that consume less fuel and pump out fewer emissions into the atmosphere. The response isn't surprising: our more mainstream cars trade power for higher efficiency.

The same general principle can be applied to power supplies. Today's processors are far less power-hungry than their predecessors. Even gaming-oriented PCs built for performance seldom suck down more than 450 W. Better efficiency, on the other hand, is good for both the environment and your wallet.

So, we went into this round-up with the following two requirements for the participants: their submissions couldn't exceed 450 W and they needed to be efficient. In order to keep prices within reason, we settled on an 80 PLUS Gold rating as sufficient to meet our second demand.

Technical Specifications

CoolerMaster V4505

Four vendors stepped up to our challenge. Seasonic offered its S12G at 450 W, which is currently selling for $75. Enermax sent in its Revolution X't, rated for 430 W and available at $90. Spend an additional $10 and you can get Corsair's RM450, which, as its name suggests, is rated for up to 450 W. Cooler Master submitted its V450S. And although that unit appeared promising, it isn't available in the U.S. That makes Seasonic's power supply the least-expensive option in our field, which isn't something you might have expected.

Patrick Afschar
35 Comments Comment from the forums
  • iam2thecrowe
    they did ripple tests......they load tested them....... that's about as much as most readers need to know, that it wont blow up at 100% load and wont damage components with excess ripple. better than some reviews i have read "we hooked it up to a pc and it worked, give gold award..."
    Reply
  • Onus
    Too bad Rosewill did not submit its Capstone for this roundup.

    It would have also been nice to see one of Seasonic's TFX units included.
    Reply
  • xenol
    Ripple and line noise tests are the indicators of whether or not a power supply is made with solid parts or made with parts that just do the job and will probably last about a year of nominal use before releasing the magic smoke. If there's a lot of ripple, then the motherboard's house keeping circuitry is going to do a lot of work to keep stable voltages (especially when a difference of even 0.1V matters).

    Yes, these are supposedly made by top-tier manufacturers, but just because they have a reputation in the past doesn't mean they have a clean slate the entire way through.
    Reply
  • 2Be_or_Not2Be
    I am just happy that we have some reviews of more reasonable P/S. Most people I know aren't running 1000W+.

    "In order to keep prices within reason, we settled on an 80 PLUS Gold rating as sufficient to meet our second demand."

    I'm also happy with my 80+ Bronze P/S. Frankly, when you're buying smaller output P/S, I really don't know why anyone would need to get a Gold-rated one.
    Reply
  • oczdude8
    Is it just me or is $100 WAY too much for a 450W psu......
    Reply
  • Adroid
    Yea I am really confused by the huge price tags here.

    I paid like 70$ for a top of the line 660W seasonic platinum PSU after MIR. Needless to say I was patient and waited for a good deal, but I see high quality 650-750W PSUs for 80$ after MIRs regularly.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    Well good quality 400W PSU can be better choice than good quality 600W version. If it works within its best efficiency area.
    Reply
  • Adroid
    13725552 said:
    Well good quality 400W PSU can be better choice than good quality 600W version. If it works within its best efficiency area.

    True, PSUs typically operate most effeciently at 80% load. I build gaming rigs though, so 400W is always too small.

    I just expected smaller PSUs to be cheaper, that's all.
    Reply
  • Drejeck
    There's a big mistake in considering 400W insufficient for gaming. I have a 770 phantom, a 750ti from kfa2 for physx, an i7 2600K at 4,4ghz, various neons, a load of fans, 4 SSDs, 2 black faex 2TB, an asus xonar d2x, and still I can't reach over 420W of power consumption in torture tests, measured with the highest end APC Smart (865W UPS). I have a Corsair 850W Gold, which is a Seasonic rebrand. And I'm ashamed I went so much overkill with my PSU.
    This review feels like useless. There's no ripple testing, whatever the second comment user says. Get some review from Guru3D and you'll see.
    Based on words I can't compare with other products on other reviews, so this is quite a fail.
    Reply
  • Drejeck
    Oh I forgot, I'm building a gaming rig with a PicoPSU 160XT... deal with it
    Reply