I purchased a Seasonic X-750 a few weeks ago for my new desktop and I can honestly say its one of the best PSUs I've ever had. The fan never runs except during long gaming sessions and even then it only remains on for short bursts and is so quiet I never notice it. The noise of my last desktop bothered my wife in our shared office so I was trying to get as quiet a build as possible without sacrificing power and this hit the spot. I'm a definite Seasonic convert after using the X750.
PS If you watch Newegg you can catch some great prices. I got my X-750 for $130 during one of their weekend sales.
I second that. I bought an X-650 and was able to get it on sale for $110 with free shipping. I wanted the 460 Fanless, but was more than satisfied to get an x-650 and save $50. Consider me converted.
By the way, with a new Sandy Bridge setup, I find that the fan almost never comes on, not due to defect, but due to super low power consumption. It takes a while under load to get the fan to turn on. Due to the proximity of the PSU to my head, I can tell when it turns on, but only with the sides off the case. The PSU is mounted in the bottom-front of my case and I discovered my fears of the fan always running were unfounded.
The X series might be the finest yet. I feel like it's the highest end piece of gear in my computer. I can always get a better GPU or CPU, but it's hard to get a better PSU than these.
This is a piddly little suggestion, but velcro straps instead of zip ties would be really appreciated. At work we used to bind up almost every cable we could get our hands on(sans Cat5) with zip ties in an effort to keep thing neat and tidy, but after a contractor came in and used some velcro there's no turning back. No longer do we have to bring a pair of wire cutters to every job and delicately snip away the zip ties without nicking anything else. On the other hand, zip ties are pennies each, and velcro isn't. It still would be nice on the flagship product line though.
On another note, have Seasonic been working on any new small form factor SFX PSUs? Really looking forward to those too.
I recommended my friend to purchase the X560 two months ago for a build I'm doing for him. The "cable ties" mentioned in the article are actually velcro straps. There are three of them. I personally own the X750 which did not come with velcro straps.
I have lost every power supply I have owned in my personal PCs for the last 15 years due to capasitor failure. All of the caps were ones that were buried under a ton of wires coming into the power supply at the point where they are soldered to the PCB. With design I expect that problem to be history! The solid caps, great air flow over the liquid caps, and fantastic quality parts i expect this power supplie to "Rule Them All" !!
If you're not a fan of modular cables why would you even consider a COMPLETELY modular PSU? There aren't many of them on the market, only the Seasonics and the Corsairs (that are Seasonics).
What price is some basic peace of mind? While I've never had a power supply blow up and damage any of my components, I've also never bought the $30 specials, either. I see this as more of an investment to the future.
This PSU (like all high quality ones) has very good voltage stability (ripple plus total), which is the one thing that a PSU is supposed to provide. All of the other stuff is completely superfluous.
Also, I think you're going to find that there are no other 80+ Gold certified PSU's that cost anything appreciably less.
Though I do agree, I'm not a fan of modular cables - I would imagine that you'd get better voltage regulation if the cables weren't modular (a little bit better, at least).
I've always been a bit confused about the pricing of this model, which has been out for a while now. It's very close to the x650 in price (at least when the x650 is discounted, which the x560 never seems to be). Is the x560 actually higher quality than the older x650/x750 models?
Well, not much. But the advantage is they have chosen better transistors. In addition the heatsinks for those SR transistors are larger now and the position of some components is different.
To the comment about velcro straps: this model comes with 3 velcro straps with a Seasonic logo on them.
I have three of these PSU's running from a low wattage router (brazos) to a high wattage desktop (4 core phenom.) One of the PSU's i received was DOA. The Seasonic RMA process is a single html page on their website that unfortunately does not yet include the serial numbers for this particular model in the java script validation logic. Therefore all RMA's have to be emailed and approved manually, which took over a week for the first response. Luckily for me, the NewEgg RMA process is much better than the Seasonic RMA process and within a few days I got a working replacement via NewEgg.
<first page> Even most of the S12II and M12II models (which they don't generally offer as review samples) are getting awards all **other** the world for providing high quality in a mainstream market segment.
...all **over** the world...
<last page, second paragraph> **Stargin** with the connectors, Seasonic shows an instinctive feeling for different...
**Starting**...
I appreciate your reviews and have used them when making purchases on more than one occasion. Thanks!
I remember seeing a power supply review in the past that had a diagram of the length of each cable. Such a diagram would be very helpful in the future for making purchasing decisions, especially for those of us with cases where the power supply is far away!
Martin, could you do some testing of Titanium-Standard PSUs... specifically around the 1kW mark. There's only T-Standard available at NewEgg, which I think is around 500Watts, but if you could contact the vendors and get the 1kW versions - that would be nice.
Your readers appreciate when you all analyze products that aren't/won't be available at NewEgg - me especially :)
In the past, if I remember correctly, the numbers for 230V were included in your reviews here Martin, not only 115V for the american net. Why did you change that? I know this is an american site, but the audience is international ... .
It would be no problem to add these measurements next time. With this I just have more work and I didn't know, that 230VAC results are interesting for some readers here. Good to know.
I was thinking the same thing. Other than the coolness factor of being able to transport just the power brick I don't see a purpose and there is sure to be a minute penalty to efficiency by having those modular.
If they sell different length cables it is nice, for example with the provided 24-pin cable the length is great if you have a bottom-mounted PSU, but it is a lot of extra to hide if you have top-mounted. If they made a shorter cable for top-mounted cases it would be a benefit.
I've done a build with this PSU, and I appreciated the fact that all of the cables were modular during the build process. Not having the bulky main power cables getting in the way until I was ready to route them properly was nice.
Also, based on the results it doesn't look like the performance is suffering.
Great review Martin, but there's one thing I wish you had emphasized a bit more-the significance of that Sanyo Denki fan.
We all know that most power supplies use cheap, crappy fans; even the ball bearing ones in most units are Chinese-made garbage of questionable quality, and in my experience fan failure is the cause of an awful lot of power supply failures.
The Sanyo Denki fans Seasonic is using in these units, by contrast, are some of the most reliable, longest-lived and highest quality fans on the market. The impellers are balanced with little blobs of epoxy to minimize wobbling and subsequent wear on the bearings, and they have some of the tightest and lowest-drag bearing assemblies I've ever seen; the only other companies that are in the same quality ballpark are Nidec and EBM-Papst, in my opinion. Delta, Adda and NMB-MAT (aka Panaflo) are decent, but even they're not as good as Sanyo Denki, Nidec or Papst. And everything else is pretty much garbage.
As far as I can tell, the 9S1212F404 in this PS is a tachless variation of the F401 (datasheet here: http://db.sanyodenki.co.jp/product_db/cooling/dcfa... ). The F401 has a MTBF of 40,000 hours... And that doesn't sound like a lot compared to what some companies advertise. Except that that rating is with a 90% survival rate, and rated at 60*C. Rate it at 25*C or whatever like a lot of companies do and it's probably closer to 160-200,000 hours, if not more.
Given that it only runs intermittently in the X series power supplies, I can easily see one of these power supplies lasting 10-20 years or longer. There are very, very, very few consumer goods of any kind these days that can legitimately make a claim like that, and-thanks in large part to the SD fans-the X-Series power supplies are the only PSUs I've seen that can.
i think the relatively small price premium for these units relative to other similarly-sized PSUs is worth it on that fact alone; I've used the X-Series power supplies in every computer I've built at work since they came out, including any of our servers that do not require redundant power supplies, and I'll continue to use them for as long as they'll make them.
Yes, thanks for listing the cable lengths, especially the main power / cpu cable. Last time around I bought an expensive and high-quality PSU which turned out to have main cable so short that it barely worked in a mid-size tower. BTW you say the main cable is 60 cm in one place, and 65 cm in another. Unless I misread it.
I used this PSU in my home server build and couldn't be happier. When the server is sitting idle or just serving up media, the PSU fan doesn't run. When the Xeon 3440 is churning through high def video transcodes, the system is still dead quiet.
I expect this server to last 5-10 years so paying for quality components up front wasn't a problem.
Just wanted to post thank you for buying from a retailer instead of using a cherry picked review sample from the company. I hope you guys do this for all the hardware you review, not just the PSUs. Great to read impartial reviews like this!
No problem. But we often get samples from a manufacturer, less frequent from a retailer or distributor.
These are chosen randomly so the manufacturer doesn't know, if we check out the version on the market. Nevertheless I don't have the money to pay for every sample so we still have different sources.
Excellent article that provides a great deal of insight into the design and construction of the X-Series 560W.
A good read after a hard day at work.
For $120 this is a fair price for quality components, an excellent design, and a diverse assortment of connectors of ATX Towers and HTPC's.
This is a 850W unit which is scaled down to 550W service. I suppose having the fan start above 20% of load is necessary but the fan is indeed very quiet. This power supply has plenty of margin for operation above 550W.
The only improvement I can think of using a PWM Fan with Hydro bearings.
Seasonic is a company which stands behind its warranty too. I had a 500W MII power supply go bad 6 months ago. A diode had come lose from its mainboard and lodged in the fan grill. I applied for an RMA, boxed the failed power supply, mailed it to their RMA center in California, and recieved a new replacement in less than two weeks.
No hassle -- No problems -- Full satisfaction with the service.
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46 Comments
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Ikefu - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
I purchased a Seasonic X-750 a few weeks ago for my new desktop and I can honestly say its one of the best PSUs I've ever had. The fan never runs except during long gaming sessions and even then it only remains on for short bursts and is so quiet I never notice it. The noise of my last desktop bothered my wife in our shared office so I was trying to get as quiet a build as possible without sacrificing power and this hit the spot. I'm a definite Seasonic convert after using the X750.PS If you watch Newegg you can catch some great prices. I got my X-750 for $130 during one of their weekend sales.
ckryan - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
I second that. I bought an X-650 and was able to get it on sale for $110 with free shipping. I wanted the 460 Fanless, but was more than satisfied to get an x-650 and save $50. Consider me converted.By the way, with a new Sandy Bridge setup, I find that the fan almost never comes on, not due to defect, but due to super low power consumption. It takes a while under load to get the fan to turn on. Due to the proximity of the PSU to my head, I can tell when it turns on, but only with the sides off the case. The PSU is mounted in the bottom-front of my case and I discovered my fears of the fan always running were unfounded.
The X series might be the finest yet. I feel like it's the highest end piece of gear in my computer. I can always get a better GPU or CPU, but it's hard to get a better PSU than these.
Mr Perfect - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
This is a piddly little suggestion, but velcro straps instead of zip ties would be really appreciated. At work we used to bind up almost every cable we could get our hands on(sans Cat5) with zip ties in an effort to keep thing neat and tidy, but after a contractor came in and used some velcro there's no turning back. No longer do we have to bring a pair of wire cutters to every job and delicately snip away the zip ties without nicking anything else. On the other hand, zip ties are pennies each, and velcro isn't. It still would be nice on the flagship product line though.On another note, have Seasonic been working on any new small form factor SFX PSUs? Really looking forward to those too.
etamin - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
I recommended my friend to purchase the X560 two months ago for a build I'm doing for him. The "cable ties" mentioned in the article are actually velcro straps. There are three of them. I personally own the X750 which did not come with velcro straps.Mr Perfect - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
Really? Nice! I was squinting at the one product shot in the article and thought I saw regular zip ties.Denithor - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
Seconded! Would definitely be interested in a high quality + quiet sff psu for my htpc setup...
Mr Perfect - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
Yes, not a whole lot of competition out there in SFX land. Silverstone has the SFX ST45SF, but that's the only thing I'm aware of.strikeback03 - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
I know some of the Enermax PSUs come with velcro cable ties, so it certainly can be doneUwanna - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
I have lost every power supply I have owned in my personal PCs for the last 15 years due to capasitor failure. All of the caps were ones that were buried under a ton of wires coming into the power supply at the point where they are soldered to the PCB.With design I expect that problem to be history!
The solid caps, great air flow over the liquid caps, and fantastic quality parts i expect this power supplie to "Rule Them All" !!
For now anyway :)
Tim
Alexvrb - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
There's no doubt in my mind that Seasonic power supplies rule, and this model in particular is very, very nice. Well worth the money.Beenthere - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
This is a decent PSU but I'm not a fan of modular cables for PSUs and this PSU is over-priced IMO.ckryan - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
If you're not a fan of modular cables why would you even consider a COMPLETELY modular PSU? There aren't many of them on the market, only the Seasonics and the Corsairs (that are Seasonics).erple2 - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
What price is some basic peace of mind? While I've never had a power supply blow up and damage any of my components, I've also never bought the $30 specials, either. I see this as more of an investment to the future.This PSU (like all high quality ones) has very good voltage stability (ripple plus total), which is the one thing that a PSU is supposed to provide. All of the other stuff is completely superfluous.
Also, I think you're going to find that there are no other 80+ Gold certified PSU's that cost anything appreciably less.
Though I do agree, I'm not a fan of modular cables - I would imagine that you'd get better voltage regulation if the cables weren't modular (a little bit better, at least).
Plus, it's only $130.
Beenthere - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
I'd go with the PC Power and Cooling Silencer II for $100.Termie - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
I've always been a bit confused about the pricing of this model, which has been out for a while now. It's very close to the x650 in price (at least when the x650 is discounted, which the x560 never seems to be). Is the x560 actually higher quality than the older x650/x750 models?Martin Kaffei - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
It is.Well, not much. But the advantage is they have chosen better transistors. In addition the heatsinks for those SR transistors are larger now and the position of some components is different.
Fine tuning.
Termie - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
Thank you, Martin. It's great to be able to ask the experts questions!Uwanna - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
I did purchase the X850 instead of the X560 in this review.Once I saw the pictures of the internals on another website review I knew this was the one for me.
Tim
mino - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
"This is basically an 850W PSU that doesn't always run the fan."surely not 850W ...
MrSpadge - Friday, March 25, 2011 - link
Sure it is. That's the whole point of this sentence ;)MrS
bryanb - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
To the comment about velcro straps: this model comes with 3 velcro straps with a Seasonic logo on them.I have three of these PSU's running from a low wattage router (brazos) to a high wattage desktop (4 core phenom.) One of the PSU's i received was DOA. The Seasonic RMA process is a single html page on their website that unfortunately does not yet include the serial numbers for this particular model in the java script validation logic. Therefore all RMA's have to be emailed and approved manually, which took over a week for the first response. Luckily for me, the NewEgg RMA process is much better than the Seasonic RMA process and within a few days I got a working replacement via NewEgg.
DLimmer - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
First off, Excellent review.I greatly value your expertise, and picked up an Antec TP-650 based off your http://www.anandtech.com/show/3985/three-550w-psus... review.
Minor editing changes:
<first page>
Even most of the S12II and M12II models (which they don't generally offer as review samples) are getting awards all **other** the world for providing high quality in a mainstream market segment.
...all **over** the world...
<last page, second paragraph>
**Stargin** with the connectors, Seasonic shows an instinctive feeling for different...
**Starting**...
I appreciate your reviews and have used them when making purchases on more than one occasion. Thanks!
Martin Kaffei - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
Done, thanks a lot.Drag0nFire - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
Dear Editor,I remember seeing a power supply review in the past that had a diagram of the length of each cable. Such a diagram would be very helpful in the future for making purchasing decisions, especially for those of us with cases where the power supply is far away!
Otherwise, great review! Keep them coming!
--J
vol7ron - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
Martin, could you do some testing of Titanium-Standard PSUs... specifically around the 1kW mark. There's only T-Standard available at NewEgg, which I think is around 500Watts, but if you could contact the vendors and get the 1kW versions - that would be nice.Your readers appreciate when you all analyze products that aren't/won't be available at NewEgg - me especially :)
Folterknecht - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
Hi!In the past, if I remember correctly, the numbers for 230V were included in your reviews here Martin, not only 115V for the american net. Why did you change that? I know this is an american site, but the audience is international ... .
Gruß aus Deutschland
Folterknecht
Martin Kaffei - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
It would be no problem to add these measurements next time.With this I just have more work and I didn't know, that 230VAC results are interesting for some readers here. Good to know.
Grüße zurück.
MrSpadge - Friday, March 25, 2011 - link
Agreed!Nach ein Gruß aus Deutschland ;)
deadlockedworld - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
Reviews like this are why this site is more credible than many of its competitors.DanNeely - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - link
maybe, but nothing is more fun than reading OklahomaWolf tearing into a cheap piece of junk.jed22281 - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
^this!JohnnyGuru is where it's at for PSU reviews.
Badcapt.net is alos a pretty handy resource.
Anand for SSD's FTW! :-)
jed22281 - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
badcaps.netpiroroadkill - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
Yesss, I do love JonnyGuru for OklahomaWolf's style.jabber - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
Wouldnt it be better and more reliable to have the main power input lead actually hardwired into the PSU rather than through a connector?After all thats the one lead you are going to use.
7Enigma - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
I was thinking the same thing. Other than the coolness factor of being able to transport just the power brick I don't see a purpose and there is sure to be a minute penalty to efficiency by having those modular.strikeback03 - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
If they sell different length cables it is nice, for example with the provided 24-pin cable the length is great if you have a bottom-mounted PSU, but it is a lot of extra to hide if you have top-mounted. If they made a shorter cable for top-mounted cases it would be a benefit.somedude1234 - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
I've done a build with this PSU, and I appreciated the fact that all of the cables were modular during the build process. Not having the bulky main power cables getting in the way until I was ready to route them properly was nice.Also, based on the results it doesn't look like the performance is suffering.
djc208 - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
Think I found the PSU for my next upgrade! This or the passive version might be a good idea for my WHS too.Ptaltaica - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
Great review Martin, but there's one thing I wish you had emphasized a bit more-the significance of that Sanyo Denki fan.We all know that most power supplies use cheap, crappy fans; even the ball bearing ones in most units are Chinese-made garbage of questionable quality, and in my experience fan failure is the cause of an awful lot of power supply failures.
The Sanyo Denki fans Seasonic is using in these units, by contrast, are some of the most reliable, longest-lived and highest quality fans on the market. The impellers are balanced with little blobs of epoxy to minimize wobbling and subsequent wear on the bearings, and they have some of the tightest and lowest-drag bearing assemblies I've ever seen; the only other companies that are in the same quality ballpark are Nidec and EBM-Papst, in my opinion. Delta, Adda and NMB-MAT (aka Panaflo) are decent, but even they're not as good as Sanyo Denki, Nidec or Papst. And everything else is pretty much garbage.
As far as I can tell, the 9S1212F404 in this PS is a tachless variation of the F401 (datasheet here: http://db.sanyodenki.co.jp/product_db/cooling/dcfa... ). The F401 has a MTBF of 40,000 hours... And that doesn't sound like a lot compared to what some companies advertise. Except that that rating is with a 90% survival rate, and rated at 60*C. Rate it at 25*C or whatever like a lot of companies do and it's probably closer to 160-200,000 hours, if not more.
Given that it only runs intermittently in the X series power supplies, I can easily see one of these power supplies lasting 10-20 years or longer. There are very, very, very few consumer goods of any kind these days that can legitimately make a claim like that, and-thanks in large part to the SD fans-the X-Series power supplies are the only PSUs I've seen that can.
i think the relatively small price premium for these units relative to other similarly-sized PSUs is worth it on that fact alone; I've used the X-Series power supplies in every computer I've built at work since they came out, including any of our servers that do not require redundant power supplies, and I'll continue to use them for as long as they'll make them.
iamkyle - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
Once again, no bar charts means no direct comparisons to other PSU's.Arbie - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
Yes, thanks for listing the cable lengths, especially the main power / cpu cable. Last time around I bought an expensive and high-quality PSU which turned out to have main cable so short that it barely worked in a mid-size tower. BTW you say the main cable is 60 cm in one place, and 65 cm in another. Unless I misread it.Seasonic is now on my list for the next time.
somedude1234 - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - link
I used this PSU in my home server build and couldn't be happier. When the server is sitting idle or just serving up media, the PSU fan doesn't run. When the Xeon 3440 is churning through high def video transcodes, the system is still dead quiet.I expect this server to last 5-10 years so paying for quality components up front wasn't a problem.
poohbear - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
Just wanted to post thank you for buying from a retailer instead of using a cherry picked review sample from the company. I hope you guys do this for all the hardware you review, not just the PSUs. Great to read impartial reviews like this!oh, and the article was well done too.;)
Martin Kaffei - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - link
No problem. But we often get samples from a manufacturer, less frequent from a retailer or distributor.These are chosen randomly so the manufacturer doesn't know, if we check out the version on the market. Nevertheless I don't have the money to pay for every sample so we still have different sources.
ClagMaster - Friday, March 25, 2011 - link
Excellent article that provides a great deal of insight into the design and construction of the X-Series 560W.A good read after a hard day at work.
For $120 this is a fair price for quality components, an excellent design, and a diverse assortment of connectors of ATX Towers and HTPC's.
This is a 850W unit which is scaled down to 550W service. I suppose having the fan start above 20% of load is necessary but the fan is indeed very quiet. This power supply has plenty of margin for operation above 550W.
The only improvement I can think of using a PWM Fan with Hydro bearings.
Seasonic is a company which stands behind its warranty too. I had a 500W MII power supply go bad 6 months ago. A diode had come lose from its mainboard and lodged in the fan grill. I applied for an RMA, boxed the failed power supply, mailed it to their RMA center in California, and recieved a new replacement in less than two weeks.
No hassle -- No problems -- Full satisfaction with the service.
oneoho - Sunday, March 27, 2011 - link
This article may have converted me to a Seasonic fanboy :)More than I've ever wanted to know about a PSU but definitely got my nerd juices flowing.