Andyson is a name that these days few PSU buyers are likely to recognize. The company has been around for almost two decades, but until very recently has struggled to make a name for itself, having been dogged by issues such as the poor reputation of Hiper's PSUs, which were based on Andyson platforms and were quite unreliable.

Looking to recover from these events, the company recently set about improving their quality and their reputation in the process, and as a result the company is making a strong comeback this year. They have released numerous new designs, most of which they are retailing under their own brand name. A few weeks ago, we had a look at their flagship, the Platinum R 1200W PSU, and our testing results were very promising.

However, as excellent as the Platinum R 1200W is, it is a product aimed at a very small and saturated market. Having a very good flagship PSU is good for every manufacturer because it serves as a symbol of the company's capabilities and competence, with a strong showing at the top often boosting sales across the board. On the other hand, it is the low and middle output units that actually generate the bulk of a company's revenue. Today we are having a look at such a unit, the N500 Titanium.

As its name suggests, the N500 Titanium is a very high performance 500W PSU capable of meeting 80Plus Titanium efficiency levels. Technically, only the 700W unit of the series has an official 80Plus Titanium certification so far. But with the 500W unit based on the same platform, we do not expect that it will have any trouble meeting the certification either. The MSRP of $110 is a little high for a 500W PSU but, depending on its performance, it could entice those that want a very efficient unit but do not need a high power output.

Packaging and Bundle

The N500 Titanium is supplied in a medium-sized cardboard box, covered by elegant artwork resembling brushed metal. Inside the box, the PSU is protected by a thin layer of polyethylene foam and a nylon bag. Given its relatively low weight, the packaging should be sufficient for shipping protection, although we would like to have seen better protection for such a premium product.

Alongside with the standard AC power cable, a manual and four black mounting screws, Andyson also provides four thumbscrews, several long and short cable ties, as well as three cable straps. It is a well thought and practical bundle.

The N500 Titanium is a semi-modular design and Andyson supplies the extra cables in a small nylon bag with a zipper. Peculiarly, the cables themselves are very basic, with color-coded wires wrapped in black sleeving.

The following table lists the number of connectors.

The Andyson N500 Titanium PSU - External Appearance

If not for the side sticker indicating its Titanium status, the N500 could be easily mistaken for a run of the mill 500W PSU. It is very simple, without any important aesthetic enhancements, save from the sticker on the right side of the chassis. The chassis is sprayed with a satin black paint.

Another sticker is covering the left side of the chassis, with a table indicating the electrical specifications of the unit printed on it. Paying particularly close attention to asthetics, Andyson actually installed the N500 Titanium sticker upside-down so that when installed in a windowed left side panel, the visible sticker always appears right-side-up regardless of its orientation.

The rear of the PSU is of no interest, with a typical AC cable receptacle and on/off switch. A small metallic plate indicates that this is a "full range" model, i.e. it can operate on any consumer's electrical grid on the planet.

Only four connectors for the modular cables can be seen at the front side of the unit. The native fixed cables of the PSU, the ATX 24-pin and the CPU 12V 4+4-pin cables, exit from a hole near the edge of the unit. Just like the modular cables, these are very basic, with black sleeving covering color-coded wires. It is also interesting to note that the sleeving of the 24-pin cable was a little damaged near the hole, despite Andyson having a plastic protection ring installed.

The Andyson N500 Titanium PSU - Internal Design

Andyson rebranded the fan of the N500 Titanium and thus we could not safely identify its model. It is a 135 mm fan with a maximum speed of 1600 RPM and a power draw of 0.08 Amperes. It also appears to have a sleeve/fluid type bearing.

Andyson designs and creates their own PSUs, therefore there is no other OEM behind the N500 Titanium. There are some strange things to notice about the layout of this PSU, with the strangest of them all being its simplicity. The design is based on a half-bridge inversion stage with resonant conversion, which is good but atypically basic for such a high efficiency product.

Another strange part comes right after the filtering stage; there are not one, but two rectifying bridges. While the use of a standard bridge in a Titanium-grade unit is peculiar to begin with, the use of two bridges in a 500W unit is even stranger. With the current rating these bridges have, they could easily be used for a design with three times the power output. The bridges are attached on the heatsink with the APFC active components, one transistor and one diode.

The third peculiar thing about this unit is the presence of two Nippon Chemi-Con APFC capacitors, rated at 420V/270μF each. They are very high quality capacitors but their combined capacitance is far too high for a 500W PSU. Most of the secondary side capacitors are supplied by Nippon Chemi-Con as well, but we also spotted Toshin Kogyo (TK) products among them. TK may not be a very popular brand with computer PSU manufacturers but it is a reputable Japanese company. The polymer capacitors are all supplied by Teapo.

On the secondary side, the heatsink for the secondary converters surrounds the transformer's block. The transistors are not mounted directly onto the heatsink but beneath the main PCB, with a thermal pad transferring part of the heat to the chassis as well. Two small DC to DC conversion circuits generate the 3.3V and 5V voltage lines.

Finally, the assembly quality of the PSU is very good. The soldering job is excellent and everything seems well-secured. However, there is virtually no silicon glue in the N500 Titanium PSU. Manufacturers frequently use glue to mechanically secure components and prevent damage during transportation. This does not mean that the N500 Titanium can be easily damaged, but some glue on larger components would not hurt.

Cold Test Results

For the testing of PSUs, we are using high precision electronic loads with a maximum power draw of 2700 Watts, a Rigol DS5042M 40 MHz oscilloscope, an Extech 380803 power analyzer, two high precision UNI-T UT-325 digital thermometers, an Extech HD600 SPL meter, a self-designed hotbox and various other bits and parts. For a thorough explanation of our testing methodology and more details on our equipment, please refer to our How We Test PSUs - 2014 Pipeline post.

As expected, the efficiency of the N500 Titanium is astonishing. The unit reached a maximum conversion efficiency of 95.2% at 50% load and an average of 94.1% within the nominal load range (20% to 100% of the unit's capacity). Not only that, but the low load efficiency is comparatively excellent as well, with the N500 Titanium maintaining an energy conversion efficiency of 91.4% at 10% load and 84.6% at 5% load. An efficiency greater than 84% with a load of merely 27.5 Watts on a 500W unit is outstanding.

The very high efficiency of the N500 Titanium aids its own thermal performance, as the PSU does not have to dissipate large amounts of heat. Generally, the internal temperatures are low, just not as low as one would expect from a 500W unit with 80Plus Titanium efficiency. If not for the very small heatsinks of the PSU, thermal performance figures could have been even better. Still, the temperatures are low enough to keep the fan from spinning too fast. Even with the PSU at maximum load for prolonged periods of time, the fan will barely be audible outside of a PC case.

Hot Test Results

Switching over to our hot testing results, as we see in the following tables, the N500 Titanium displays excellent stability and delivers very good power quality, even when thermally stressed. The maximum voltage ripple on the 12V line is 52 mV at maximum load, less than half that of the design limit (120 mV). Strangely, the 3.3V line always displays a ripple of 16 mV, regardless of the unit's load. The maximum recorded ripple on the 5V line is 26 mV, nearly half of the design limit (50 mV).

Voltage regulation is very strong on the 12V line, with a regulation of 0.75% across the load range. On the other hand, the regulation of the minor voltage lines is considerably worse, at 2% across the load range, but that remains a very good performance figure for such a PSU.

We should mention that this PSU does not have a clear temperature rating. This most likely means that it has been rated at 40°C, as this is the commercial computer PSU temperature standard. However, in order to match the 50°C rating of several high-end products, we perform our testing at temperatures higher than 45°C. We could reduce the ambient temperature of our hotbox testing but we chose not to do so as the results would then not be comparable to those of our previous reviews.

According to our results, it does not look like Andyson would have any trouble giving this PSU a clear power output rating at 50°C. The N500 Titanium can maintain its output and strong performance within a very hot environment. It lost only 0.55% of its average energy conversion efficiency, which dropped to 93.55% across the nominal loading range. The drop is evenly distributed across the load range and does not increase in effect as the load increases, suggesting that the PSU's capacity is virtually unaffected by the high environmental temperature.

The internal temperatures of the N500 Titanium do go high with the unit operating inside our hotbox, reaching heatsink temperatures over 80°C at maximum load. Thermal performance is a little worse than before, with widened temperature delta's by about 15%, indicating that the cooling system of the N500 Titanium is getting a little stressed. Still, the fan does not overwork itself. It does spin faster and gets louder than before, but it does not really go over 75% its maximum speed. Apparently, Andyson is not willing to sacrifice the acoustics performance of the PSU unless it is absolutely necessary and these temperatures are not high enough to have an impact on the PSU's longevity or, apparently, its performance. 

Conclusion

Andyson's motives surrounding the release of the 80Plus Titanium certified N series are as clear as day - the company wants to market top efficiency units with reasonable power output at retail prices. Currently, most 80Plus Titanium PSUs that have found their way into the retail market are behemoths with three times higher power output than what most home and gaming PCs require. Although technically only the N700 Titanium is actually tested and certified, the N500 is based on the same platform and our testing proved that it should have no problem meeting the certification levels either. With an output of 500 Watts, the N500 Titanium is capable of powering the vast majority of home and gaming PCs. Even with a single high-end graphics card installed, the N500 Titanium is likely to be sufficient for the system.

The problem with designs capable of reaching 80Plus Titanium efficiency levels is that they are very costly, preventing them from being competitive in the market. Andyson approached this issue in two ways. First, they did not spend too much effort on the aesthetics of the PSU. Visually, it is just a semi-modular black PSU with typical sleeved cables. Secondly, they managed to get very high efficiency from a relatively simple design by just using high quality components. As a matter of fact, Andyson managed to reach 80Plus Titanium efficiency levels while only using typical bridges at the primary conversion stage and a half-bridge layout at the primary of the transformer. Most designers would struggle to reach 80Plus Platinum efficiency levels using that setup.

Although Andyson obviously strove to keep the retail price low, they did not make cuts on quality. In fact, some parts of the PSU are unreasonably oversized as well. For example, the current rating of the two input rectifying bridges should be enough for a PSU three times more powerful. The exclusive use of Japanese (Nippon Chemi-Con and Toshin Kogyo) electrolytic capacitors and Teapo solid-state polymer capacitors should satisfy even the most demanding of users.

Despite that the N500 Titanium is not the prettiest PSU ever made, its good electrical performance, very high efficiency and great quality are sure to entice those seeking a top-performance unit near the 500 Watt power range. The MSRP of $110 for the N500 Titanium reasonable, considering that 550-650W 80Plus Gold certified units usually retail for $80-100. However, much like the Platinum R 1200W that we reviewed some months ago, it is exceedingly difficult to find in the US at this point of time, or almost anywhere outside Eastern Asia for that matter. Andyson is having serious distribution problems, with very few of their products being actually available in most markets. Hopefully, as the company grows, that issue will solve itself.

Finally, one should also consider that the premium price tag of the 80Plus Titanium efficiency units is probably not worth it if all that matters to the user are power cost savings. The higher efficiency will certainly reduce the energy consumption of a PC, but the cost savings over an 80Plus Gold unit are small. Such calculations depend on the local cost of energy but a quick assessment reveals that it usually would take several years to cover the extra initial cost. This is even truer for a 500 Watt model, as the absolute energy savings are even lower.