EVGA SuperNOVA 550 GS PSU Review

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EVGA teamed up with Seasonic to release an affordable, mid-capacity, 80 PLUS Gold, fully modular PSU, the SuperNOVA 550 GS, which costs just $90.

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Cross-Load Tests And Infrared Images

Our cross-load tests are described in detail here.

To generate the following charts, we set our loaders to auto mode through our custom-made software before trying more than 1000 possible load combinations with the +12V, 5V and 3.3V rails. The load regulation deviations in each of the charts below were calculated by taking the nominal values of the rails (12V, 5V and 3.3V) as point zero.

Load Regulation Charts

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Load regulation on the +12V rail wasn't super-tight, but it was satisfactory. And load regulation could be better on the 3.3V rail.

Efficiency Chart

The PSU achieves over 90 percent efficiency for a significant section of its operating range, as you can see from the corresponding graph.

Ripple Charts

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Ripple suppression on the +12V rail from 450W to 475W load was satisfactory. After that, it entered the 40mV to 60mV range, which isn’t what we'd expect from a Seasonic implementation. In some cases, we spotted more than 60mV of ripple on this rail, even with normal ambient temperatures. Ripple suppression on the minor rails was superb.

Infrared Images

Toward the end of the cross-load tests, we took some photos of the PSU with our modified FLIR E4 camera that delivers 320x240 IR resolution (76,800 pixels).

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Aris Mpitziopoulos
Aris Mpitziopoulos
Contributing Editor

Aris Mpitziopoulos is a contributing editor at Tom's Hardware, covering PSUs.

18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • damric
    There are less rippletastic options at that price point.
    Reply
  • Nuckles_56
    Nice to see a review of a smaller ATX PSU for a change
    Reply
  • Aris_Mp
    my last reviews were of smaller capacity units and I will try to bring even more of them.
    Reply
  • Luay
    Coorection, EVGA did release a gold rated 1050W and 850W Seasonic PSU also branded as GS, and a platinum 1000W PS. There's also a 650W version of the PSU reviewed here which takes the total to five Seasonic OEMs branded by EVGA.
    Reply
  • Larry Litmanen
    There are less rippletastic options at that price point.

    For the most part when it comes to PC parts you get what you pay for. Unless you spot a great sale, a 550W fully modular, 80 Gold PSU from a company like EVGA with a 5 year warranty. EVGA is super easy to deal with should you need to replace a unit. All that for $90? If this PSU was a 650W unit with same features and for the same price it would have been perfect.
    Reply
  • atheus
    There are less rippletastic options at that price point.

    For the most part when it comes to PC parts you get what you pay for. Unless you spot a great sale, a 550W fully modular, 80 Gold PSU from a company like EVGA with a 5 year warranty. EVGA is super easy to deal with should you need to replace a unit. All that for $90? If this PSU was a 650W unit with same features and for the same price it would have been perfect.
    You mean the price would have been perfect? Confusing idea to change the wattage rather than just change the price. I take that to mean instead of a certain price/performance you would rather have a 650 watt PSU than a 550.

    I see 650 watt PSU's as only for SLI systems, which are fairly niche. With 550 you can handle any single GPU, and in the case of Maxwell GPU's <= 980 you could even SLI them so long as you aren't doing some obscene overclocking or running a dozen fans and pumps and a datacenter worth of HDD's. So for my go-to wattage for a standard high performance single GPU build is 550. For medium performance 450 is even better.
    Reply
  • Dark Lord of Tech
    I own this one great modular power supply.
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    Unless you really feel the need for a gold rated PSU, I would probably save some cash and stick with a Seasonic 520w or 620w M12II. Even the 750w B2 series is cheaper.
    Reply
  • Aris_Mp
    Coorection, EVGA did release a gold rated 1050W and 850W Seasonic PSU also branded as GS, and a platinum 1000W PS. There's also a 650W version of the PSU reviewed here which takes the total to five Seasonic OEMs branded by EVGA.

    This is exactly what I write inside the review. Four GS PSUs and one PS.

    "So far, the new PS series includes only a single unit with 1kW of max power; EVGA's GS line, on the other hand, has four PSUs with 550, 650, 850 and 1050W capacities."

    I also have the 650 GS in my lab, but this isn't for Tom's.
    Reply
  • Coolant
    Quick question, what would happen if one of the secondary fets was removed?
    Reply