SPCR

Zap wrote:I love how not only is higher efficiency getting cheaper, but Seasonic is not forgetting about users who don't need hugely overpowered PSUs.

I've also noticed that they are making 80Plus Gold TFX PSUs. Hopefully they target SFX sized PSUs next for the "Gold" treatment, as well as higher wattage. Silverstone/FSP needs some competition there.

I agree about it being great that the low-power end of the spectrum is receiving better coverage recently. Some brands focus on their higher efficiency models for 650-750Watt+, leaving the low end with 80+ or 80+ bronze options. More modular versions of gold and platinum low-watt power supplies in the future would be great too, like an updated version of G-360, (although I think G-360 is fine as is - it's not modular, but its cables are not very long, thus making it a good choice for a small case still).

MikeC wrote:Certainly, if there are any issues with the quality of the AC line* or interference from other equipment or appliances running off the AC circuits, if any of the components in the system are less tolerant of variations in the 12VDC (and other) lines. Ditto when the PSU is pushed close to its limits (due to high system load in normal use) -- which a picoPSU+brick would face far more often because of its lower headroom. System and component stability & longevity are affected by PSU regulation/stability.

Has this been tested and verified (just curious)?

SEASONIC USA GIVEAWAY WINNERS

by random draw from all North Am. posters in this discussion: DataPath and fuzzymath10

Congrats!

To all who participated, better luck next time!

Please email me; I will forward your emails to Seasonic to arrange for delivery.

My email: mikec at you know the url.

I'm considering this to replace my OCZ StealthXStream 400W which died in less than a year (first the fan started making horrible noises and not long after I replaced that, some other fault has developed so that it trips out within a couple of seconds of turning on the motherboard).

It looks like it uses better components than most of the alternatives in this price range. The only thing that concerns me is the fact it uses a ball-bearing fan, which I'm led to believe tend not to be as good as sleeve-bearing fans, such as this quote from elsewhere:

"It's an AD1212**-A70GL fan, it's generally a grab bag if they're going to have bearing noise or not.

Usually the sleeve bearing & hypro bearing models are fine, but the Ball Bearing models almost always end up with some noise."

Now obviously having a sleeve-bearing fan (Yate Loon D14SM-12) in my OCZ StealthXStream didn't do me much good but maybe I was just unlucky and got a bad one. What I want to avoid if possible (or for as long as possible) is having to RMA the PSU because the fan's gone noisy (or for any other reason but hopefully the rest of the high quality components in the G-360 will minimise the chance of any other fault developing) because a) it's going in my brother's PC, who lives hundreds of miles away and is totally non-technical, so it would be a pain having to talk him through disconnecting and removing the PSU and b) whilst he's waiting for the replacement, he'll be completely without a PC.

Other than that, this seems ideal for his PC as it's a fairly low-powered Athon II X4 630, 8GB RAM, IGP, one PCI TV Tuner, 2 HDDs and 2 ODDs and the case has the PSU bottom-mounted, so drawing air from outside (through a magnetic fan filter I've added, which will obviously reduce the airflow somewhat, but prevent dust and cat hair accumulating in the PSU).

Sleeve bearing fans generally don't last as long as ball bearing ones when used in horizontal (rather than vertical) position... which is one reason most higher priced PSUs don't use them. They're most often ball and less often hybrid bearing types.

MikeC wrote:Sleeve bearing fans generally don't last as long as ball bearing ones when used in horizontal (rather than vertical) position... which is one reason most higher priced PSUs don't use them. They're most often ball and less often hybrid bearing types.

Ah, that's good to know. Sounds like I'll be better off with the ball bearing fan in the G-360 then. Even if it's a bit louder than a sleeve-bearing fan would be, I'd take that if it reduces the chance of the fan developing a fault.

Maybe one day PSU manufacturers will offer an instant swap-out, like Dell do with their monitors, so that users aren't faced without having a PC or buying another PSU to use whilst they wait for the original one to be replaced

Techpowerup reviews the G-550. Good performance at $100. But, I'm a bit dismayed by the fan profile in the hot box (ambient 40-45C) with ramp up starting at a little over 100W. I wonder how much the ramp would shift to the right with a 25-30C ambient...

CA_Steve wrote:Techpowerup reviews the G-550. Good performance at $100. But, I'm a bit dismayed by the fan profile in the hot box (ambient 40-45C) with ramp up starting at a little over 100W. I wonder how much the ramp would shift to the right with a 25-30C ambient...

There are enough G360 users right here to run a poll on real-world behavior. I'll start:

I just replaced an older AMD785/Phenom with an FM1-based system for HT use. The review sample G360 went in there, almost immediately after the review was done, a little over 2 weeks ago. The older setup had an idle power of 40~42W; the new one is down to 32-33W. It is quicker, mostly because I've now got an SSD for the OS. It is also quieter, again mostly because there's is one less HDD in there (a single WD Green). The machine sits in a very low profile case, on a shelf with decent room around it case in an open cabinet under the TV. The PSU intake is from the bottom, outside the case. The hottest it has been in the room is 27C, and the most work I've asked it to do is some transcoding of HD home video for maybe 10~20 mins. I'm not sure what the power draw went up to; I doubt it was much over 100W. There were also file transfers of nearly a terabyte of data from the WD drive via gigabit network down to my home server but I doubt that raised the power draw much above idle.

The PSU fan has never ramped up, afaik.

At 30C room ambient, in a decent modern case under typical conditions, I doubt the fan in the G360 or any of the G series would ramp up at <150W load.

Thanks for the HTPC point of view. I guess I'm used to seeing fan ramp at the 50% of rated power for normal ambient. Not sure if the G-550 has this profile. For comparison, the SPCR testing showed fan ramp starting at 150W for the 360W PSU in the hot box and ~200W at ambient. Techpowerup shows G-550 fan ramp starting somewhere between 110W and 220W for hot box..boy, they need at least one more data point to make this useful.

Granted, part of my dismay is the lack of data points between 110W and 220W in their review....and it's the sweet spot for mid-ranged gaming builds.

According to Kill-a-Watt (not entirely accurate, I know), I'm at sub 100 Watts at all times until I enter a game (G360 PSU). My case and CPU fans are controlled by a fan controller and remain at static RPM, so the only fans that ramp up automatically are my GPU fans (2x on my super-quiet ASUS GTX 670 DCII TOP) and the PSU fan. My computer sits on my desk very close to me, and I have all the fans as quiet as possible. I would say that I've heard the PSU fan ramp up but only at higher loads, like when entering a more demanding game (over 130 Watts). Not entirely easy to separate it from my GPU fans, but those are exceptionally quiet until ~50% when they start adding a tonal component. I think all I hear from the G360 fan is a pleasantly-sounding rush of air at higher loads.

Just for this post, I ran Prime95 large-FFT for a while, and did not notice the fan ramp up at all (all other fans being static, and GPU is not stressed at all). According to Kill-A-Watt, I should be at just over 100 Watts for that (after taking efficiency into account). I could up CPU voltage and run Prime95 again to see where I start hearing the PSU fan.

I'm sure this would be adequate for an i5 3570k + Radeon HD7850 setup, but can anyone put my mind to rest that it wouldn't get annoyingly noisy under load?

Its small physical size and cheap price make it very appealing, but I'll happily pay more for noticeably less noise, and I don't really want to end up swapping the fan...

It's perfectly adequate. My components are more powerful, and I never stress my PSU in normal applications, including games:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1126863/real ... t_18164451

My set up is here:
http://www.overclock.net/lists/display/view/id/4478110

UPDATE-
My brother is having issues running his at full bore..well his wife is anyhow....multitasking with two games running while surfing causes a blue screen. we are going to try a seasonic 430watt PSU with dual 12v lines and see if that helps.

asus z77
saphire Radeon HD 7850
16gb ram
830 samsung ssd
500gb wd green hdd.

xan_user wrote:UPDATE-
My brother is having issues running his at full bore..well his wife is anyhow....multitasking with two games running while surfing causes a blue screen. we are going to try a seasonic 430watt PSU with dual 12v lines and see if that helps.

asus z77
saphire Radeon HD 7850
16gb ram
830 samsung ssd
500gb wd green hdd.

Is the GPU overclocked? What processor does she have and is it overclocked / what voltage is it running at at load? You should be fine with this PSU with what you've listed unless you overclock.

ShadeOfBlue wrote:

xan_user wrote:UPDATE-
My brother is having issues running his at full bore..well his wife is anyhow....multitasking with two games running while surfing causes a blue screen. we are going to try a seasonic 430watt PSU with dual 12v lines and see if that helps.

asus z77
saphire Radeon HD 7850
16gb ram
830 samsung ssd
500gb wd green hdd.

Is the GPU overclocked? What processor does she have and is it overclocked / what voltage is it running at at load? You should be fine with this PSU with what you've listed unless you overclock.

cpu= i5 3570k
no OC'ing on cpu, memory or gpu.
stock asus bios voltage.

PC had been OC'd ~10-15% originally, but problem still persisted, albeit less frequently, when things were set back to stock.

a UPS is on order, no idea how dirty the power is or not...

Judging by your description, I don't think this has anything to do with wattage rating of this PSU but could be related to a defect somewhere.

Why 2 games simultaneously, along with web browsing? Sounds like a perfect way to develop ADD or dyslexia if you don't already have it!

Anyway, I'd put $$ down on a software clash as the cause -- nothing to do with power. TDP of a 7850 is only ~130W, no 1155 chip exceeds maybe 80W in real use, and the rest is trivial -- perhaps 250W absolute tops for the whole system.

MikeC wrote:Why 2 games simultaneously, along with web browsing? Sounds like a perfect way to develop ADD or dyslexia if you don't already have it!

Anyway, I'd put $$ down on a software clash as the cause -- nothing to do with power. TDP of a 7850 is only ~130W, no 1155 chip exceeds maybe 80W in real use, and the rest is trivial -- perhaps 250W absolute tops for the whole system.

no idea why 2 games and web...
since its 3k miles away now, im gonna let them trouble shoot it. apparently the bluescreen error indicated power issues when he googled it...

il report back when its been swapped...who know's, the problem may continue with a new psu. I dont want to derail thread trying diagnose the issue here. -just reporting the info as i get it.

BTW the 360w will get shipped back for me to use in a build of my own, so i will put it though its paces and see whats what eventually. (you can see why i wasnt really fighting the swap...as it equals a free psu for me!)

Hmm, these are available in the UK now but looking at Newegg, there's 5 reviews and 40% (i.e. 2) had faulty units (1 of those got two faulty units!) whilst 60% (i.e. 3) are very happy.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817151117

Is there perhaps anything else that would be worth looking at? Main requirements are reliability, including fan which should be ball-bearing it seems, low-noise and price. Efficiency is nice but not as important so if I have to get a more powerful unit (i.e. 500w) than I need for a fairly low-power HTPC to get reliability then so be it.

doveman wrote:Hmm, these are available in the UK now but looking at Newegg, there's 5 reviews and 40% (i.e. 2) had faulty units (1 of those got two faulty units!) whilst 60% (i.e. 3) are very happy.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817151117

Is there perhaps anything else that would be worth looking at? Main requirements are reliability, including fan which should be ball-bearing it seems, low-noise and price. Efficiency is nice but not as important so if I have to get a more powerful unit (i.e. 500w) than I need for a fairly low-power HTPC to get reliability then so be it.

It's difficult to judge reliability based on that small number of reviews. Moreover, you can't really see what the true diagnosis of the system where the person complained about their computer rebooting after a load reached 150 watts would be, since you don't have that computer and don't really know. It could be that they were running something that crashed the computer when it started. Anyway, it's very small-number statistics, so until you see a lot more reviews, correct reliability % is a very vague number.

Moreover, I'm betting a lot more than 5 people bought that PSU off NewEgg since it became available, and yet there are only 5 reviews. So there's definitely a selection bias too : people who really love it post and people who have problems post.

Regarding Seasonic reliability... I've been using them for over 10 years, and at least a dozen have been abused around the lab for years, going back to the Super series, the S12s, various non-retail OEM types, the M12s, and the X series. A very few have failed -- all were 300W 80mm fan models I modded with Panaflo 80M fans back in the day when case airflow really was in its infancy. They died after some years use, due most likely to capacitor failure from high internal temperatures. I haven't had any other Seasonics fail. IMO, Seasonics are as good as anything else in the market, most likely better, because their engineering dept is highly conservative & refuse to create products that won't hold up under extreme testing conditions.

(An Aside: Engineering conservatism is one reason why all Seasonics get really loud at maximum load -- their fan controllers have a near exponential curve -- at 400W the fan in an X-650 might not even start, but at full load, it's like 40 dBA! This is because the engineering dept wants the PSUs to be able to run indefinitely at 100% load. The creators of PSUs that keep the fan at low speed even at maximum load are betting that most users will never be able to run their PSUs to full load because they all overbuy power -- ie, a 500W rated PSU will rarely see 250W peak demand in a DIY PC. Not true among server builders, where they like to run PSUs at 60~80% of rated load, which gives highest conversion efficiency, and maximizes the stretch of their hardware $$s. Seasonic was an OEM-only manufacturer for 25 years before they started marketing/selling under their own brand. It still shows.)

ShadeOfBlue wrote: It's difficult to judge reliability based on that small number of reviews. Moreover, you can't really see what the true diagnosis of the system where the person complained about their computer rebooting after a load reached 150 watts would be, since you don't have that computer and don't really know. It could be that they were running something that crashed the computer when it started. Anyway, it's very small-number statistics, so until you see a lot more reviews, correct reliability % is a very vague number.

Moreover, I'm betting a lot more than 5 people bought that PSU off NewEgg since it became available, and yet there are only 5 reviews. So there's definitely a selection bias too : people who really love it post and people who have problems post.

Yeah, I was surprised there was only 5 reviews too and I realise it's not really enough to make a judgement on, it's just a bit worrying if Seasonic are shipping faulty PSUs. As for your last point, I would hope most people who haven't had problems would really love it, if it's as good as the reviews suggest, so I wonder why so few have posted. That could be interpreted as meaning most buyers haven't found it particularly special but they might just be too lazy

MikeC wrote:Regarding Seasonic reliability... I've been using them for over 10 years, and at least a dozen have been abused around the lab for years, going back to the Super series, the S12s, various non-retail OEM types, the M12s, and the X series. A very few have failed -- all were 300W 80mm fan models I modded with Panaflo 80M fans back in the day when case airflow really was in its infancy. They died after some years use, due most likely to capacitor failure from high internal temperatures. I haven't had any other Seasonics fail. IMO, Seasonics are as good as anything else in the market, most likely better, because their engineering dept is highly conservative & refuse to create products that won't hold up under extreme testing conditions.

(An Aside: Engineering conservatism is one reason why all Seasonics get really loud at maximum load -- their fan controllers have a near exponential curve -- at 400W the fan in an X-650 might not even start, but at full load, it's like 40 dBA! This is because the engineering dept wants the PSUs to be able to run indefinitely at 100% load. The creators of PSUs that keep the fan at low speed even at maximum load are betting that most users will never be able to run their PSUs to full load because they all overbuy power -- ie, a 500W rated PSU will rarely see 250W peak demand in a DIY PC. Not true among server builders, where they like to run PSUs at 60~80% of rated load, which gives highest conversion efficiency, and maximizes the stretch of their hardware $$s. Seasonic was an OEM-only manufacturer for 25 years before they started marketing/selling under their own brand. It still shows.)

I very much trust your experience Mike but the cautious side of me says "Maybe they dropped the ball on this model or have lowered their standards a bit", particularly when I see a buyer who's received two faulty units in a row.

I'm torn as I really need to buy a PSU and get my brother's PC finished but I don't want to rush into buying something I'll regret. Hopefully there'll be some more user reviews soon to help me make a decision.

Well again, you're building conspiracy theories out of 2 bad reviews. If you really want to, it's your choice - it sounds like you're set to remain biased.

Question:

This review states efficiency at 451 Watts (87.21% on European voltage):
http://www.kitguru.net/components/power ... -review/6/

This means they were somehow able to overload the PSU to that value. It's even stated in the conclusion "can handle 450Watts"

Is this something that varies from batch to batch? SCPR's unit exhibited a "quick safety shutdown at only ~20W above the rated output load" (400 Watts). The unit KitGuru reviewed worked at 451 Watts.

Does this perhaps suggest temperature or voltage dependency of the maximum Watt throughput value?

ShadeOfBlue wrote:Question:

This review states efficiency at 451 Watts (87.21% on European voltage):
http://www.kitguru.net/components/power ... -review/6/

This means they were somehow able to overload the PSU to that value. It's even stated in the conclusion "can handle 450Watts"

Is this something that varies from batch to batch? SCPR's unit exhibited a "quick safety shutdown at only ~20W above the rated output load" (400 Watts). The unit KitGuru reviewed worked at 451 Watts.

Does this perhaps suggest temperature or voltage dependency of the maximum Watt throughput value?

Hard to say, really, because I did not document my shut down rigorously -- ie, I don't have details on what all the other settings were then this one-time event occurred. And Kitguru makes no mention of the load distribution either, or how long the unit ran before shutdown.

When any PSU runs really hot, the maximum power output will naturally reduce. Not sure if higher AC voltage translates to higher power -- electrically, it shouldn't change anything but efficiency, but if it runs cooler as a result... maybe.

There's always some headroom in all Seasonic PSUs beyond the rated power -- most PSUs, actually, the main question is just how much and for how long.

I personally would not buy the G360 if I thought I needed 450W -- even if only for peaks. A 500W or higher rated PSU would be apropos.

MikeC wrote:

ShadeOfBlue wrote:Question:

This review states efficiency at 451 Watts (87.21% on European voltage):
http://www.kitguru.net/components/power ... -review/6/

This means they were somehow able to overload the PSU to that value. It's even stated in the conclusion "can handle 450Watts"

Is this something that varies from batch to batch? SCPR's unit exhibited a "quick safety shutdown at only ~20W above the rated output load" (400 Watts). The unit KitGuru reviewed worked at 451 Watts.

Does this perhaps suggest temperature or voltage dependency of the maximum Watt throughput value?

Hard to say, really, because I did not document my shut down rigorously -- ie, I don't have details on what all the other settings were then this one-time event occurred. And Kitguru makes no mention of the load distribution either, or how long the unit ran before shutdown.

When any PSU runs really hot, the maximum power output will naturally reduce. Not sure if higher AC voltage translates to higher power -- electrically, it shouldn't change anything but efficiency, but if it runs cooler as a result... maybe.

There's always some headroom in all Seasonic PSUs beyond the rated power -- most PSUs, actually, the main question is just how much and for how long.

I personally would not buy the G360 if I thought I needed 450W -- even if only for peaks. A 500W or higher rated PSU would be apropos.

Thanks - I'm not using it at anything even approaching 300Watts - just curious! Oh I was able to run a 7970 on this PSU when my GTX 670 went bad and I decided to do some tests. Ran at 1000MHz/1500MHz (Core/Memory) at 1049mV set in MSI Afterburner, and K-a-W reported <241 Watt loads from the wall in games I'm just so happy with this PSU - does everything I need it to! I've yet to hear its fan turn up to very audible... I think I may have heard it turn up a bit once, but it was hard to tell if it was the PSU fan or my GPU fan turning up slightly (both very quiet).

ShadeOfBlue wrote:Well again, you're building conspiracy theories out of 2 bad reviews. If you really want to, it's your choice - it sounds like you're set to remain biased.

It's hardly a conspiracy theory to think something's gone wrong somewhere and Seasonic might have produced a bad batch, considering the user reviews I've seen.

Anyway, the UK supplier is charging £47 but wants another £11 for shipping, totalling £58. There's another company I use that does free shipping and they have the Antec VP-350P for £35, the Antec High Current Gamer HCG-400 for £50, the Antec EarthWatts EA-430D Green for £53 or the CORSAIR 430W CX for £35. Do any of these meet my requirements of quiet, reliable (i.e ball-bearing) fan, and high-quality, long-lasting components?

doveman wrote:Anyway, the UK supplier is charging £47 but wants another £11 for shipping, totalling £58. There's another company I use that does free shipping and they have the Antec VP-350P for £35, the Antec High Current Gamer HCG-400 for £50, the Antec EarthWatts EA-430D Green for £53 or the CORSAIR 430W CX for £35. Do any of these meet my requirements of quiet, reliable (i.e ball-bearing) fan, and high-quality, long-lasting components?

No hands-on experience with any of them, but recent experience with other lower power models from both brands yells: Don't Do It!

Unless you want to fan swap, other really quiet, lower cost <500W PSUs to try would be... Enermax Eco, pro/modu 82 (tho there's user feedback on less than great fan longevity); Coolermaster silent pro m 500... that's all I can think off at the moment, and maybe the Nexus Value 430... tho I hate recommending it because imo, it's only the super low noise that makes it worthy.

OK, thanks for the warning.

I have got a 140mm Noiseblocker fan I bought for £14 to fix my OCZ StealthXStream's fan before the entire PSU died but I don't really want to be fan-swapping on a PSU and thus voiding the warranty (which hopefully I'll never need but you never know).

I've still got a Nexus Value 430 going strong in what's my secondary system now and never had any problems with it but they don't seem to be available in the UK anymore unfortunately.

I can only find the Coolermaster 520W Silent Pro M2 and that's £78.

I've just found the SS-360GP on Amazon for £51 with free delivery although that says "usually dispatched within 2-4 weeks" which from past experience means they don't actually have any stock and there's a chance you might be waiting a lot longer than that. There's another seller with stock for £48.29 + £5.61 delivery = £53.90 so I might go for that but I think I'll hang on and see if the free delivery suppliers get them in stock. I guess the longer I leave it, the less chance I'll get one from a dodgy initial batch, if indeed there was such a batch.