Seasonic Prime Titanium 650W PSU Review

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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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Aris Mpitziopoulos
Contributing Editor

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

  • bharatwd
    60 Ampere of inrush current is too high for 230 V countries. Wont that damage the other parts in the pc?
    Reply
  • Aris_Mp
    It won't damage anything in the PC since it doesn't have to do anything with the PSU's secondary side. High inrush currents apply stress to the electrical infrastructure (switches, relays etc.)
    Reply
  • bharatwd
    Hi Aris, thanks for the reply..............So it will basically hurt the PSU components itself?
    Reply
  • josejones
    "Haswell Ready" ??? How about SkyLake or the soon to be released KabyLake ready?
    Reply
  • turkey3_scratch
    My mind is blown. This is a great unit and I'm happy to see the transient response performance was good. HardOCP's testing on one of the Prime Titanium units shows not-so-good transient response performance.

    Whoops accidental upvote above.
    Reply
  • Aris_Mp
    Nope it won't hurt the PSU, just the breakers and electrical circuits before it will be stressed a bit.

    Haswell ready: I was thinking to change this to S6/S7 compatible. Probably the time has come for this to happen.
    Reply
  • bharatwd
    Thanks for the reply Aris........10 years warranty will be fun if the current inrush is at 60+ Ampere :) especially in India :)
    Reply
  • Virtual_Singularity
    Excellent review. Impressive work/effort by Seasonic as well. Curious to see how the other units in this new line stack up to this one. Haven't seen HOCP's review yet, but there has been some variance in others, but still seems like a solid effort on Seasonic's part.

    With no capacitors in the cables, can't see a reason not to flatten the atx connector as well. I guess the sleeved atx connect look has become somewhat traditional. Not a criticism by any means, just saying.
    Reply
  • turkey3_scratch
    18563170 said:
    Excellent review. Impressive work/effort by Seasonic as well. Curious to see how the other units in this new line stack up to this one. Haven't seen HOCP's review yet, but there has been some variance in others, but still seems like a solid effort on Seasonic's part.

    With no capacitors in the cables, can't see a reason not to flatten the atx connector as well. I guess the sleeved atx connect look has become somewhat traditional. Not a criticism by any means, just saying.

    On Jonnyguru Oklahomawolf likes the ATX cable to be sleeved and the others to be ribbon; this is because 24 wires can sometimes become difficult to manage in ribbon style versus sleeved. That's just his thinking at least, and I sort of understand where he comes from with that. If it's ribbon style that also makes it an extremely wide cable, whereas if it is sleeved it's more narrow for better cable routing and then widens up at the end.
    Reply
  • JackNaylorPE
    I find round sleeved cables much more difficult to manage, and the reason why many builders sleeve there own cables or use extensions. OTOH, the plain flat cables are just fugly, you can get the best of both worlds with flat, individually sleeved cables. Individually sleveed cables, with cable combs, offer the optimal combination of aesthetic choice and easier cable routing.


    I don't really understand the big "ooh wow" about Titanium rates PSUs; all it is is a "green" energy consumption rating and unless you pay well above the average US utility costs, you'll never get a positive ROI. What I don't understand is why "PSUs and cables" aren't offered as a "bundle". I hate paying a quality set of cable and then leaving them in a box. I'd like to see some PSU manufacturer "step up" and and say offer every PSU with a $xx coupon for a set of cables. The value of the coupon would cover the basic cable set so it would essentially come free with the PSU. OTOH, if you wanted to move up to a, individually sleeved set, you would only have to pay the difference between the base set and the set of your choice

    http://www.frozencpu.com/products/18823/psu-cab-50/Corsair_Professional_Series_Individually_Sleeved_DC_Modular_Cable_Kit_Type_3_Generation_2_-_White_CP-8920050.html?tl=g2c413s1599
    Reply