Roundup: 12 Gaming Power Supplies Compared

By Patrick Afschar, TG Publishing Team
published

Gamers demand a lot from their computers, starting with the PSU. Therefore, almost every PSU manufacturer sells products optimized for gaming PCs. We introduce ripple and noise testing in this roundup to further improve our power supply evaluations.

Seasonic X-750

The $170 Seasonic X-750 provides a positive first impression when we unpack it. The 750 W PSU is stowed away in a black velvet case, while the cables come in two nylon packs. Except for Corsair, Seasonic is the only manufacturer in this roundup to use a fully modular cable management system, with even the ATX and CPU cables being modular (though the value of this is questionably, since you're probably not going to use a power supply without hooking it up to your motherboard).

The fan on the Seasonic X-750 only starts running at loads above ~250 W, otherwise staying perfectly silent. The 750 W PSU is 80 PLUS Gold-certified, and its single +12 V rail (preferable to all of the units with dinkier +12 V output spread over multiple rails) can handle up to 62 A.

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Seasonic X-750
AC Input200-240V, 50-60 Hz
DC Output+3.3 V+5 V+12 V (#1)+12 V (#2)+12 V (#3)+12 V (#4)-12 V+5 Vsb
25 A25 A62 An/an/an/a1.0 A3.0 A
Individual OutputRow 3 - Cell 1 Row 3 - Cell 2 Row 3 - Cell 3 Row 3 - Cell 4 Row 3 - Cell 5 n/an/a
Rail UtilizationSysSysCPU & VGA
Combined Output125 W744 W
Total Continuous Output750 W
Peak Outputn/a
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Patrick Afschar
103 Comments Comment from the forums
  • FLanighan
    Why not Corsair? I jizz at my tx850w :)
    Reply
  • xxsk8er101xx
    Because it failed a few of the tests.

    FLanighanWhy not Corsair? I jizz at my tx850w
    Reply
  • p1n3apqlexpr3ss
    Corsair has a gamer series... whyd they test one of the units from the top line aimed more at enthusiasts?
    Reply
  • V8VENOM
    Odd, why isn't Silverstone reviewed at all? Most of the power supplies they looked at are junk for anyone with more than one GPU and overclocking. I dumped my PC Power & Cooling 1000 Watt PSU because it couldn't handle two ATI 5870's and overclocked CPU to 4Ghz with 1600 FSB. I put in a Silverstone 1500Watt PSU and my system has been rock solid ever since.

    The article doesn't appear to measure noise from during switching and how much noise is introduced to the CPU and bus.

    Anyway, it will be a cold day in hell before anyone gets me to switch out my Silverstone 1500 Watt PSU.
    Reply
  • scook9
    V8VENOMOdd, why isn't Silverstone reviewed at all? Most of the power supplies they looked at are junk for anyone with more than one GPU and overclocking. I dumped my PC Power & Cooling 1000 Watt PSU because it couldn't handle two ATI 5870's and overclocked CPU to 4Ghz with 1600 FSB. I put in a Silverstone 1500Watt PSU and my system has been rock solid ever since.The article doesn't appear to measure noise from during switching and how much noise is introduced to the CPU and bus.Anyway, it will be a cold day in hell before anyone gets me to switch out my Silverstone 1500 Watt PSU.You are either lying or very unlucky (got a bad PSU)......I have crossfire 5870s and an i7 965 and all stock cannot exceed 650W at the wall (about 550W actually used) no matter what I try.
    Reply
  • JamesSneed
    Nice tests but I came to a different conclusion. The seasonic X-750 is close to the most effiecent in the bunch and did you see that voltage ripple it looked like it was flat lining.
    Reply
  • boiler1990
    For the ~$20 price difference between the Corsair 850HX and the AX850, I think I'll get the AX. It never hurts to invest in a great PSU :)
    Reply
  • juuh
    V8VENOMOdd, why isn't Silverstone reviewed at all? Most of the power supplies they looked at are junk for anyone with more than one GPU and overclocking. I dumped my PC Power & Cooling 1000 Watt PSU because it couldn't handle two ATI 5870's and overclocked CPU to 4Ghz with 1600 FSB. I put in a Silverstone 1500Watt PSU and my system has been rock solid ever since.The article doesn't appear to measure noise from during switching and how much noise is introduced to the CPU and bus.Anyway, it will be a cold day in hell before anyone gets me to switch out my Silverstone 1500 Watt PSU.
    I call BS. I could run your setup with my PC power & cooling 750w unit.
    http://www.techspot.com/review/289-geforce-gtx-480-sli-versus-radeon-5870-crossfire/page9.html
    Reply
  • vanhalen
    No recommendation for the Seasonic? Am I missing something?
    Reply
  • random1283
    agreed no reccomendation for an x series seasonic, you guys must be mssing something, every other review of the x series said that they are simply amazing much better then any nxzt or anything.
    Reply