If you want Seasonic's legendary quality without hurting your wallet, this series of
power supplies might be for you.
Howdy howdy guys ponchato here, and today we're going to take a look at Seasonic's
Focus Gold power supplies.
First appearing in summer of 2017, the Focus Gold series from Seasonic is targeted at midrange
builds.
They're available in 100W increments from 450 up to 750, come with semi modular cables,
and as the name implies, have an 80 Plus Gold efficiency rating.
In terms of size these are right along with the smallest ATX power supplies you can buy;
only 140mm long.
They come with a 120mm fan running with a fluid dynamic bearing and utilize Seasonic's
Smart and Silent Fan Control which basically means the fan only ramps up under load and
otherwise stays very quiet.
Seasonic also backs up the Focus Gold series with a 7 year warranty, which is a really
long time for midrange power supplies.
As usual, Seasonic's box design is really attractive and has basically all the information
you might want right on the outside.
On the small edge you have all the specifications like dimensions, connectors, and electrical
ratings, and on the back they have all the special features and a bit more information
about the power supply.
Inside the box you'll find a bag with zip ties, Velcro ties, mounting screws, and a
case badge, a Steam e-gift card (though I'm not sure how long that promotion will run),
a cloth bag to hold any extra modular cables, and then the user manual.
Underneath all that you have the modular cables, wall power cord, and finally the power supply
in its protective cocoon.
The foam end caps keep the power supply safe during shipping and Seasonic also has it in
a protective cloth sleeve which keeps it free from dust and scratches.
In terms of electrical ratings, one thing I really appreciate from Seasonic is that
their power supplies can pretty much always deliver their entire or almost entire wattage
on the 12V rail.
On this one, that's 444W versus the overall rating of 450W.
It's something to appreciate since the highest power components in computers are the CPU
and GPU, which draw pretty much exclusively from the 12V rail.
Moving onto the power cables, the 24 pin motherboard and 8 pin CPU cables are both hardwired to
the power supply.
I would've liked to see the CPU cable sleeved instead of having two sort of separate cables,
but this does match the rest of the modular cables better.
The 450W Focus Gold comes with a 3 connection peripheral cable, peripheral to floppy adapter,
shorter SATA cable with 2 connections, longer SATA cable with 2 connections, and finally
the PCIe power cable with 2 6+2 pin connections.
The 24 pin motherboard cable is 24 inches or 61cm long, the 8 pin CPU cable is 28 inches
or 71cm long, the PCIe cable is 28 inches to the first connector and 4 more inches to
the second (71 and 10cm, respectively), the longer SATA cable is 29 inches with the connectors
5 inches apart (74cm and 13), the shorter SATA cable is 24 inches or 61cm and again
the connectors are 5 inches apart, the peripheral or Molex cable is 28 inches or 71cm long with
the connectors again 5 inches apart, and finally the floppy connector is 5 inches or 13cm long.
It'd be nice if we could just go completely over to metric and entirely stop reporting
anything in inches.
A man can dream.
My testing procedure for power supplies is pretty straightforward: power usage and noise
at idle and power usage and noise under load.
I'm not too concerned with voltage ripple or tolerances because, frankly, I don't
think they're ever a problem from any of the major manufacturers.
If a power supply can't regulate its voltages to the point of system instability, it probably
just won't work to begin with.
Once I get tired of arguing with people about it, I'll go out and get a $500 oscilloscope
that I'm only going to use once just to prove it.
Anyway.
The test setup is my Ryzen 3 1200 overclocked to 4.1Ghz running at 1.35V, my stock GTX 1060
3GB, and 8GB of DDR4-2400 memory, though slow memory like this barely uses any power anyway.
I use Prime95 to max out the CPU, and Unigine's Valley benchmark to stress the graphics card.
At idle, the Focus Gold 450 is basically silent and runs right along with the other 80 Plus
power supplies in terms of efficiency.
The only 80 Plus rating that actually covers idle or near-idle conditions like these is
Platinum, and the cheapest Platinum power supply is about $140, so that's in another
class.
I should note here that that Raidmax power supply is the only non-80 Plus power supply
on the list, which might explain the nearly 25% gap in power usage.
Also the Focus Plus 850FX can be set to run fanless under low load, but for these tests
I left the fan control in the always-on position.
Moving onto load results, this is where the Focus Gold shines and where efficiency really
starts to matter.
It's about 10 watts ahead of the 80 Plus Bronze M12II Evo and 80 Plus Standard Thermaltake,
and a sizeable 30 watts ahead of the Raidmax.
Noise bumps up very slightly to 39.2 dB, which makes sense since the fan should be ramping
up at a 50% load.
That said, it's still nearly silent, and would be just about impossible to pick out
over a GPU fan during gaming.
Now for the pros and cons.
On the pros side, the first is that it's a Seasonic.
You don't have to worry about dumpy build quality or poor longevity.
Second, it's quiet.
For the price range the Focus Gold supplies are targeted toward, you should expect your
components to run quiet and this one does.
Third, these can deliver basically their entire rated wattage on the 12V rail alone.
Not every power supply or even company does this, and it means if you push the wattage
limits on these you won't burn down your house.
Fourth, I really like that no matter the orientation, Seasonic's nice looking badge and design
always face out in the case, rather than sticking the ugly electrical rating table on the side.
It's a minor thing, but nice attention to detail.
As for the cons, the first is price.
As of publishing this, the 450W Focus Gold will run you $65 USD all the way up to $90
for the 750W model.
This series is much more accessible than their higher end offerings, but it still comes at
a premium compared to the cheap stuff you might throw in a budget build.
Second, and this is definitely not unique to the Focus Gold or even Seasonic, CPU power
connectors should be able to interlock to make plugging them in easier.
Oddly enough the only power supply I've used that has this feature was the $20 Raidmax.
It's really not a big deal, but it does make it much easier to deal with tight cases.
All in all if you're putting together a mid-range build and want to save a bit with
a semi modular power supply without sacrificing noise or efficiency, the Focus Gold series
from Seasonic is a great option.
If you want to pick one up, click the link in the description.
If you want to get notified of new videos as soon as they're up, hit subscribe then
click the bell icon to enable notifications.
So guys if you liked this video hit the like button, if you want to see more hit subscribe,
and if you have any questions on the Focus Gold or these tests, leave them in the comments
below.
Thanks for watching, I hope I helped, and I'll see you in the next video.
For more infomation >> DSPTCH Travel Pack Review (Navy) | 30L Ballistic Nylon 1 Bag Travel Option - Duration: 13:00. 
For more infomation >> Arctic Freezer 33 TR Review and Cooling Benchmarks - Duration: 4:35. 
For more infomation >> Bernalillo County postpones vote on review of BCSO policies - Duration: 0:54. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét