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Pros, Cons And Final Verdict
Seasonic's new platform is finally here and, as promised, it offers fantastic performance. It took the company a while to develop an 80 PLUS Titanium-capable design. And given Super Flower's domination in this category, it wasn't looking good for one of the best PSU OEMs out there. But it looks like the long wait was justified, in light of today's results. Clearly, we're looking at a great-performing platform with which Seasonic can build its Prime PSUs.
Soon, the company will fill out the Prime line-up with three families, including Gold-, Platinum-, and Titanium-rated products covering a wide wattage range. Even a fully passive 600 W unit will be included in the Titanium category, enabled by high efficiency. To be sure, Seasonic appears ready for a come-back in the high-end category. That's great for us, since more competition in the PSU market drives prices down and pushes engineering teams to create better hardware.
Up until now, Super Flower's Titanium-class Leadex platform dominated our charts. It looks like the scenery is changing, though. Of course, we're anxious to see how other OEMs respond to Seasonic's new models. Moreover, since Seasonic doesn't want to be fully employed in the retail market (at least that's the apparent strategy so far), we may also see this new platform under other brands and at more affordable prices.
The SSR-650TD is an amazing PSU. Its only downside is the 3.3V rail's average performance in our Advanced Transient tests. Everywhere else, its results are ground-breaking. For starters, it beats the previous efficiency king, EVGA's 850 T2. Besides very high efficiency, the 650 W Prime unit also offers quiet operation even under extremely tough conditions. We'd like to point out that this is the first time Seasonic is using a >120 mm diameter fan in a high-end PSU. We are very happy about this, since the company's engineers understand that larger diameter fans have a great advantage over smaller ones when it comes to noise output. Though some of you may have wanted to see a more trusted fan vendor represented, Seasonic seems confident in Hong Hua. Otherwise it wouldn't cover the SSR-650TD with a 10-year warranty.
Finally, this platform's ripple suppression is great. Our numbers show that there's no need for extra filtering capacitors on the modular cables to achieve readings under 10 mV on all rails at normal operating temperatures. Those capacitors might offer improved performance, but they make the cables less flexible. And if you want to use other cables, like individually sleeved ones, you loose the better ripple suppression advantage. Besides, the PSUs that include extra ripple filtering caps typically only have them on the main ATX, PCIe, and EPS cables. The peripheral connectors are excluded, so the parts attached to them don't benefit. With Seasonic's approach, all of your hardware is fed by rails featuring the same DC quality.
Given its outstanding performance in almost every discipline, the 650 W member of Seasonic's Prime Titanium family easily wins an editor's choice award.
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