The Fractal Design Ion+ 760P 80Plus Platinum PSU Review: A High-End PSU For the Mainstream Builder

Conclusion

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.