Riotoro Enigma 850W PSU Review

Riotoro is a newly founded company that's currently involved in the PSU, chassis, cooling, and gaming peripheral markets. It only has two PSU lines with three total members, and today we're looking at the Enigma 850W, its flagship offering.

By Aris Mpitziopoulos
published

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Pros, Cons And Final Verdict

Riotoro seems to be on the right path. In our opinion, it made a wise decision by offering two PSU lines that address mid-range and mainstream systems. While high-end products garner more prestige, most builders care about affordability.

The Enigma 850W is based on a decent platform, manufactured by Great Wall, which serves up commendable performance and comes equipped with the almost all necessary protection features, since surge protection is missing. Efficiency-wise, this unit is in line with its Gold-rated competition at similar capacity points. Ripple suppression is good on the minor rails, and it's reasonable enough at +12V. Lastly, the five-year warranty is one of the Enigma's biggest advantages.

Despite a long list of strengths, the Enigma 850 surely isn't flawless. Actually, there are a number of issues that bother us, the first of which is the single EPS connector that limits this 850W PSU's flexibility. Normally a power supply with this much available capacity would have two EPS connectors to support high-end motherboards. Inside the PSU, we aren't fans of the Elite EJ capacitors. When you combine that with the sleeve-bearing fan, a five warranty sounds mighty optimistic. Nonetheless, we have to believe that Great Wall made a study of this PSU's reliability before advising Riotoro to offer such a long warranty.

We certainly weren't expecting to see 85°C-rated bulk caps. It would have been better if GW used 105°C Teapo caps instead of the lower temperature rating Rubycon ones. You see, when it comes to electrolytic capacitors, a 20°C difference in temperature rating translates to a 4x-lower lifetime. This is why most manufacturers prefer to use 105°C caps in the APFC converter.

A significant problem we spotted in this PSU's platform is the lack of an MOV in the transient filter. This small, inexpensive component can save the PSU (and the system it feeds) from damage in case of a surge or spike originating from the mains network. Given the high importance of an MOV, we simply cannot understand why some manufacturers, choose to omit this component in their platforms. We spotted the same problem in Corsair's CS850M, and we expected GW to fix it in future versions of the same design. Apparently the company didn't bother. If you decide to spend your money on an Enigma 850W, budget a little extra for a surge protector, just in case.

Finally, it would be nice to see at least a rifle-bearing fan instead of the sleeve-bearing one we found inside. Sleeve-bearing fans should only be used in cheap PSUs selling for under $100 and offered with three-year warranties.

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Aris Mpitziopoulos
Aris Mpitziopoulos
Contributing Editor

Aris Mpitziopoulos is a Contributing Editor at Tom's Hardware US, covering PSUs.

16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Pompompaihn
    Enigma is a HORRIBLE name for the one part in your computer you want to always work exactly as specified and never outside of those specs....
    Reply
  • gdmaclew
    All I want to know is...Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 or Tier 4?
    Reply
  • zthomas
    850 will power a normal system.. but thinking VR or a second video card.. 850 ain't enough.. I just upgraded from a 700 to a 1200.. why go small, go larger.. you run a 900 series.. you want a punch.. not a lag..
    Reply
  • maxwellmelon
    A mov can be a blessing and a curse. When the MOV eventually fails it offers no protection (and there is no indicator on it to indicate failure) then after awhile it will form into a short at which point the psu will fail to work due to a short on the incoming mains. so your MOV will can extend the life by protecting the psu. but in the end it will be the end of the psu. In a lot of ways it is still better to get a good surge protector with MOV protection inside of it because they actually have an indicator to let you know the MOV has failed and you can actually replace the surge protector..If the MOV has failed in the psu you will never know and even if you did know the whole PSU has to be replaced. a good surge protector is still cheaper to replace then the psu.
    Reply
  • anbello262
    19366477 said:
    850 will power a normal system.. but thinking VR or a second video card.. 850 ain't enough.. I just upgraded from a 700 to a 1200.. why go small, go larger.. you run a 900 series.. you want a punch.. not a lag..

    I actually don't agree with you at all. 850w is enough for almost any system with even 1080 SLI, and VR doesn't actually require more power by itself (only requires power by high utilization of your system).
    So for almost anyone, 650w is more than enough even for high end systems, and if you want to SLI high end cards, then 850W is advisable.
    More than that is overkill in almost all cases, in my (somewhat informed) opinion.

    Having a good quality PSU is a lot more important than having more than 850W. And quality PSUs with more power tend to be a lot more expensive than a very good 850w one, from my experience.
    Reply
  • Aris_Mp
    you are right about the MOV, however personally I prefer a PSU featuring a MOV along with a UPS and a surge arrester combination. Moreover, for users that don't use surge arresters etc a MOV can save their systems besides the PSU and this is why it must be used always.
    Reply
  • jonnyguru
    19365339 said:
    All I want to know is...Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 or Tier 4?

    If that's not a joke, then you sir do not need to be here... let alone building PCs.
    Reply
  • anbello262
    19369895 said:
    19365339 said:
    All I want to know is...Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 or Tier 4?

    If that's not a joke, then you sir do not need to be here... let alone building PCs.

    Actually, having the PSUs ordered in quality tiers is a very handy way to recommend PSUs, and therefore, for the people who are not so technically proficient with the electronics inside a PSU and specific meanings of the tests, knowing if this is a "Great, good or garbage" PSU is the only important part.

    Yes, there is more information to be had by reading the whole review, but only for those who understand it (which is by no means necessary, in order to be a very good system builder). Having a qualified person tell you "this is a safe and recommended unit for system builders / this is good enough for the price / don't buy this!" is extremely useful for the whole community.
    Reply
  • Robert Cook
    If nothing else it is more competition, and a pretty promising start at that.
    A solid review.
    <Rant>
    Now on other news, PLEASE stop those damn auto play videos embedded in articles! My main system might be fine with them, but my laptop is from 2009, and it was not high spec even then. These videos are a major drain, and now there are ads before hand which means I cannot even hit the X option until the ad has played. (So I am loading free ad revenue for you at the cost of my precious little RAM.)

    Annoying clickbait is one thing, I can scroll past it, but these auto play ads/videos follow me down the page... :(

    I have been a member here for over two years and I am by no means going to stop, but I would like to be able to read articles (especially well done articles on this site) with out having great difficulty even scrolling down a page.
    </Rant>
    Reply
  • Robert Cook
    Also I do not even use adblock so you are already getting ad revenue. (I respect your right to advertise, but force playing a video and then adding ads seems a bit over blown.)
    Reply