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Final Analysis
Seasonic reclaims the performance crown in almost every category with its new Prime platform.
According to our sources, lots of time and money were invested in this high-end PSU family, which was updated within a year of its initial release to offer higher performance without the use of in-cable caps. If you combine its improvements with Seasonic's 12-year warranty coverage, there's no way to go wrong with the SSR-1000TR, so long as you're willing to spend top-dollar on a power supply upgrade. In our opinion, a PSU purchase is an investment. Buy the best one you can afford since its performance affects the rest of your components.
If you isolate the overall performance and value scores of the Prime Ultra Titanium and Platinum units, you'll notice that the latter looks like a better deal (indeed, it is). So why should you care about the more expensive Titanium model? Check our overall noise output chart for the answer. The gap between both PSUs is huge. Seasonic created a conservative fan profile for its SSR-1000TR, making it one of the quietest power supplies you can buy. The efficiency difference between the Titanium and Platinum models isn't large, but they sound like very different beasts. So, if you're building a PC with acoustics in mind, the SSR-1000TR is unquestionably preferable. It is not that the SSR-1000PD is noisy, but the Titanium-rated model comes as close as you can get to passive cooling with 1kW of capacity (true passive PSUs top out around 600W).
Increased demand for high-capacity PSUs is having a big impact on prices and availability, so it's not the best time to buy. In fact, if you're not worried about cryptocurrency mining, a 650W or 750W model should be enough to power a gaming machine with a couple of graphics cards. PSUs with 1kW or more of capacity are only really necessary if you're planning to overclock high-end hardware or install several graphics cards. In those cases, the corresponding Prime Titanium and Platinum power supplies should be on your short list.
Seasonic's engineers created the best analog platform that money can buy, and it'll be difficult for any other manufacturer to achieve higher performance levels without using digital circuits. Although we're anxiously waiting for Seasonic to take the next step and introduce its first digitally-controlled PSU, we don't have any indication that this is happening soon.
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Disclaimer: Aris Mpitziopoulos is Tom's Hardware's PSU reviewer. He is also the Chief Testing Engineer of Cybenetics, and developed the Cybenetics certification methodologies apart from his role on Tom's Hardware. Neither Tom's Hardware nor its parent company, Purch Media, are financially involved with Cybenetics. Aris does not perform the actual certifications for Cybenetics.
