Seasonic Prime 850 W Titanium PSU Review

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Seasonic made an impressive entry in the 80 PLUS Titanium category with its Prime series. This line's current flagship, offering 850W capacity, is being reviewed today. Besides high efficiency, it sports quiet operation and top performance.

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Ripple Measurements

To learn how we measure ripple, please click here.

The following table includes the ripple levels we measured on the SSR-850TD's rails. The limits, according to the ATX specification, are 120mV (+12V) and 50mV (5V, 3.3V, and 5VSB).

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Test12V5V3.3V5VSBPass/Fail
10% Load7.4mV5.5mV7.3mV2.6mVPass
20% Load9.6mV5.5mV7.5mV3.7mVPass
30% Load11.5mV6.3mV7.8mV3.6mVPass
40% Load8.9mV6.8mV8.3mV4.6mVPass
50% Load8.8mV6.2mV9.6mV5.0mVPass
60% Load9.8mV6.3mV10.0mV5.2mVPass
70% Load10.9mV6.5mV10.8mV5.8mVPass
80% Load11.1mV6.6mV11.2mV6.3mVPass
90% Load12.6mV7.4mV12.6mV6.7mVPass
100% Load13.4mV7.5mV13.1mV7.6mVPass
110% Load13.8mV8.3mV14.5mV8.5mVPass
Cross-Load 18.3mV6.6mV8.3mV3.6mVPass
Cross-Load 213.4mV6.5mV12.1mV6.6mVPass
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The SSR-850TD's ripple suppression is absolutely fantastic, and it's accomplished without the use of extra filtering caps on the modular cables. Seasonic shows its dominance here, since even the ripple-proof Leadex-based PSUs employ additional filtering caps on their modular cables to achieve similar performance.

Ripple Oscilloscope Screenshots

The following oscilloscope screenshots illustrate the AC ripple and noise registered on the main rails (+12V, 5V, 3.3V, and 5VSB). The bigger the fluctuations on the screen, the bigger the ripple/noise. We set 0.01 V/Div (each vertical division/box equals 0.01 V) as the standard for all measurements.

Ripple At Full Load

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Ripple At 110-Percent Load

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Ripple At Cross-Load 1

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Ripple At Cross-Load 2

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Aris Mpitziopoulos
Aris Mpitziopoulos
Contributing Editor

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

16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • trampus123
    I want one
    Reply
  • Nintendork
    There's no need for CF/SLI anymore, the typical PC + RX480/1080 class gpu barely goes above 300w (even less with APU setups or RX460/1050ti). We need way more 400-500w Titanium PSU's.

    We should have 90% efficiency at 50w load with PSU's in that wattage range.
    Reply
  • WFang
    I'm eagerly anticipating the 600W Passive Seasonic Titanium unit.. I read about it almost a year ago, and still have not seen it tested here ... hope that changes soon.
    Reply
  • LordDrk
    Paid $179 for my EVGA 1000W T2 on ebay =p
    Reply
  • mlga91
    Im not worthy of this one.
    Reply
  • Unolocogringo
    18846027 said:
    There's no need for CF/SLI anymore, the typical PC + RX480/1080 class gpu barely goes above 300w (even less with APU setups or RX460/1050ti). We need way more 400-500w Titanium PSU's.

    We should have 90% efficiency at 50w load with PSU's in that wattage range.

    Just because you do not need one , does not mean others don't.

    I run multiple graphics cards for Folding@Home.The more you can run on each CPU the better. People who run Dual 1080s or dual 39x cards need them to push their 4K monitors.
    So there is a need for them.

    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    Nintendork said:
    We need way more 400-500w Titanium PSU's.
    We should have 90% efficiency at 50w load with PSU's in that wattage range.
    The thing is, efficiency arguably matters less the lower the power is, because the absolute power being wasted is small. A 500W titanium PSU at max load is only drawing 15W more than a gold rated one. At 50%, 10W. As load drops past 50%, efficiency goes down, but absolute power wasted will still likely go down as well. I don't know, getting a 400W titanium PSU just seems like you're probably paying a lot more money than is necessary for a over engineered PSU which has little to no difference in performance compared to a less efficient, cheaper PSU.
    Reply
  • JV_
    No recommendation award for this one?
    Reply
  • powernod
    Just like Aris stated at his review, i find it amazing how Seasonic managed to generate such a low ripple values without using cable-in capacitors like the rest of the companies do !!
    Reply
  • Aris_Mp
    it has an editor's choice. It will be soon added :)
    Reply