Fractal Design ION+ 660P Power Supply Review: Compact And Silent

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Protection Features, DC Power Sequencing, Cross-Load Tests and Infrared Images

Protection Features

Check out our PSUs 101 article to learn more about PSU protection features.

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Protection Features
OCP12V: 74.2A (134.91%), 11.875V 5V: 29.2A (146%), 5.003V 3.3V: 30.6A (153%), 3.259V 5VSB: 5.1A (170%), 4.875V
OPP903.7W (136.92%)
OTP✓ (142°C @ 12V heat sink)
SCP12V: ✓ 5V: ✓ 3.3V: ✓ 5VSB: ✓ -12V: ✓
PWR_OKAccurate but lower than 16ms
NLO
SIPSurge: MOV Inrush: NTC Thermistor & Bypass Relay

The OCP triggering points on the minor rails should be lower, close to 130%. There is no point for so high amperage on those rails, which are only lightly used nowadays. Moreover, there are no proper heat sinks on the DC-DC converters that generate the 5V and 3.3V rails, so such high loads can create problems.

The power ok signal is accurate, but lower than 16ms which is what the ATX spec requires. This can be easily fixed though, since the hold-up time is quite long at almost 20ms.

DC Power Sequencing

According to Intel’s most recent Power Supply Design Guide (revision 1.4), the +12V and 5V outputs must be equal to or greater than the 3.3V rail at all times. Unfortunately, Intel doesn't mention why it is so important to always keep the 3.3V rail's voltage lower than the levels of the other two outputs.

No problems here since the 3.3V rail's voltage is lower in all tests.

Cross Load Tests

To generate the following charts, we set our loaders to auto mode through custom-made software before trying more than 25,000 possible load combinations with the +12V, 5V, and 3.3V rails. The deviations in each of the charts below are calculated by taking the nominal values of the rails (12V, 5V, and 3.3V) as point zero. The ambient temperature during testing was between 30 to 32 degrees Celsius (86 to 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Load Regulation Charts

Efficiency Chart

The highest efficiency region is with 160W to 360W load at +12V, with the combined load on the minor rails staying below 35W.

Ripple Charts

The lower the power supply's ripple, the more stable the system will be and less stress will also be applied to its components.

Infrared Images

We apply a half-load for 10 minutes with the PSU's top cover and cooling fan removed before taking photos with a modified FLIR E4 camera able to deliver an IR resolution of 320x240 (76,800 pixels).

The hottest part is the DC-DC converters. We apply a high load on those rails during these tests, to check their behavior since in the majority of cases the manufacturers don't use beefy heat sink in these regulators.

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Aris Mpitziopoulos
Contributing Editor

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

  • redgarl
    Sooo... anandtech is having the exact opposite conclusion and even calling it the best Stirfa PSU series... are you even knowing what you are doing?

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/14693/the-fractal-design-ion-760p-80plus-platinum-psu-review/5
    Electrically, the Ion+ 760P positively surprised us. As soon as we noticed that it is a design originating from Sirfa (High Power), we believed that most of the electrical figures would end up being mediocre, as Sirfa usually designs products that are competitive in terms of value, not performance. The Ion+ 760P is an entirely different story, delivering outstanding power quality across the entire load range and under any operating conditions, easily competing toe-to-toe with any other top-tier unit that we've reviewed so far. Furthermore, not only it is very efficient under normal circumstances, but it's able to maintain its exceptional energy conversion efficiency figures even when the ambient temperature gets very high.
    Reply
  • Aris_Mp
    Yes, I know very well what I am doing and if you bother to read the review and the provided data, you will also get an idea.
    Reply
  • Carabyte
    This PSU has very low EMI compared to other's I'm seeing on your site. Do you have a page with the EMI chart for every PSU? I'd like to know what's the lowest EMI PSU you have found at 650-750Watt range. Meaning overall the least peaks, smooth and lowest peak. This one looks quite good, is it one of the best?
    Thanks!

    Aris_Mp said:
    Yes, I know very well what I am doing and if you bother to read the review and the provided data, you will also get an idea.
    Reply