The Fractal Design Ion+ 760P 80Plus Platinum PSU Review: A High-End PSU For the Mainstream Builder
by E. Fylladitakis on August 6, 2019 9:00 AM ESTConclusion
Fractal Design is known for being patient and deliberate with their product releases, and the new Ion+ series are a paradigm of the company’s philosophy. The company did not release any new PSU families in years, allowing for the 80Plus Platinum efficiency-level platforms to mature and their retail price to drop to affordable levels, and only then set about releasing four new units to cover the bulk of of the advanced PC retail market. None of the units is overly powerful in terms of raw power output – with the best unit of the series doing just 860 Watts – indicating that Fractal Design does not care about having a halo product (or something for the cryptocurrency miners) amongst their line-up, but rather they are putting together products that actually entice regular users and are suitable for the mass market.
Electrically, the Ion+ 760P positively surprised us. As soon as we noticed that it is a design originating from Sirfa (High Power), we believed that most of the electrical figures would end up being mediocre, as Sirfa usually designs products that are competitive in terms of value, not performance. The Ion+ 760P is an entirely different story, delivering outstanding power quality across the entire load range and under any operating conditions, easily competing toe-to-toe with any other top-tier unit that we've reviewed so far. Furthermore, not only it is very efficient under normal circumstances, but it's able to maintain its exceptional energy conversion efficiency figures even when the ambient temperature gets very high.
The high efficiency of the Ion+ 760P allows the unit to maintain very low operating temperatures under all load conditions. This obviously has a positive impact on the longevity of the unit, but also allows for the PSU to operate without having to rely on the cooling fan too much. Under normal operating conditions, the fan of the unit will not even start until the PSU faces a significantly high electrical load. It is likely that users with a middle-class, energy efficient CPU and an equivalent gaming GPU may never get to hear the fan spinning, especially if located at colder climates. Otherwise, if the internal temperature of the unit is very high, the fan will quickly accelerate, sacrificing acoustics in order to ensure the longevity and performance of the unit, but such behavior should never occur in typical PCs.
Overall, the new Ion+ 760P unit is an exceptionally well balanced PSU, delivering excellent power quality figures while still operating quietly. With the company backing up the unit with a 10-year warranty, we feel that the MSRP of $119.9 is fair for such a quality 760 Watt PSU. With just a bit of luck (and a working free market), we expect the competition to bring retail pricing quite a bit lower than that, making the Ion+ 760P PSU a formidable competitive product that definitely deserves to be in the shortlist of anyone seeking to purchase a high-end PSU.
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Jane_JJ - Wednesday, August 28, 2019 - link
I thought people on this site were better than that -"I am surprised how narrow minded most Americans are about globalization," that could be said about almost any other country on the planet. Brexit being the comically obvious example. We just have the largest English speaking population and trashing on "americas" is like trashing on one age demographic for the media. While not necessarily wrong there just doing it for the clicks/views. Also while globalization is very much increasing make no mistake we are still about a quarter of the GLOBAL GDP. Almost any product on the market at any reasonable scale is made for the US market and adapted for other countries. (I’m not saying this is a or bad thing) Do some research into standards body and that will become apparent.fist003 - Wednesday, August 14, 2019 - link
thisSkeptical123 - Wednesday, August 14, 2019 - link
Zepi your point "Over 95% of world population doesn't live in US" is "irrelevant" in this case. As the US makes up ~24% of GLOBAL GDP. Ie we are the worlds largest consumers and while counties like China are close as I'm sure you know they play by a different rule book over there. So laws that are very applicable in the "western world" are not a factor (at least yet). So these stickers are very much for the US market even if they only are applicable in say Germany or the UK.evernessince - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
No, it wouldn't pass muster in court. The law doesn't make exceptions of non-user serviceable parts. If it did then every manufacturer would simply declare their products "non-serviceable". FYI power supplies ARE user serviceable if you discharge the capacitors, it's just not recommended for amateurs. To a certain degree all parts are serviceable assuming you have enough skill. The law isn't going to start guessing which are and which aren't.If companies want to void warranties they are going to have to prove the customer damaged the item, not because of some arbitrary definition of what is and isn't serviceable or some silly sticker.
Peichen - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
Another Asian product with an European label for premiumAlyxSharkBite - Saturday, August 17, 2019 - link
They’re not illegal they are unenforceable in the US (regardless of what some people say about the user serviceable) but these are sold in the North America (content not region of the US) that includes markets such as Canada where it might be enforceable (I don’t know Canadian laws). It’s not a US Exclusive product. That’s why they are on there.YB1064 - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
I haven't seen this in any PSU review till date, but in addition to quoting ripple (rms?), it would be useful to show a voltage power spectrum (V^2/Hz vs Hz). This will clearly show noise at various frequencies. You could also integrate this PSD to get cumulative noise (should be equivalent to RMS).I would not suggest this to any other run of the mill review site, but you guys seem to do a good job of providing technical analysis and details.
PS: I can post a MATLAB script to do this if you want.
umano - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
That sounds good, upvote!Chaitanya - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
Compared to seasonic how good are the sirfa units?kyuu - Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - link
While I can't speak from experience, the article itself seems to answer your question. Sirfa units, by themselves, are generally not high quality. However, Fractal's modifications to the platform has resulted in a product that is top-tier, and appears to beat other brand's products, even Seasonic, in most every measure.