The 1STPlayer Steampunk 80+ Gold 750W PSU Review: A New Challenger Emerges
by E. Fylladitakis on May 12, 2020 8:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- PSUs
- 80Plus Gold
- Modular
- 1STPlayer
Hot Test Results
In the following tables we can see that the 1STPlayer Steampunk 750W delivers relatively good power quality. The maximum voltage ripple on the 12V line is 30 mV, an unimpressive figure nowadays, but just 25% of the ATX design guide's recommended 120 mV limit. The regulation of the 12V line is exceptional as well, at 0.8% across the entire nominal load range. 1STPlayer paid less attention to the minor 3.3V/5V lines, the output quality of which is significantly worse. The ripple on the 3.3V/5V lines reaches 16mV/22mV respectively with a recommended maximum at 50 mV, and the regulation is at nearly 2.5% for both lines. These figures are definitely acceptable but not on par with the exceptional performance of the primary 12V line.
Main Output | ||||||||
Load (Watts) | 151,84 W | 378,67 W | 564,9 W | 752,23 W | ||||
Load (Percent) | 20,25% | 50,49% | 75,32% | 100,3% | ||||
Amperes | Volts | Amperes | Volts | Amperes | Volts | Amperes | Volts | |
3.3 V | 1,37 | 3,39 | 3,44 | 3,37 | 5,16 | 3,32 | 6,87 | 3,31 |
5 V | 1,37 | 5,18 | 3,44 | 5,16 | 5,16 | 5,1 | 6,87 | 5,06 |
12 V | 11,55 | 12,13 | 28,87 | 12,1 | 43,31 | 12,04 | 57,75 | 12,03 |
Line | Regulation (20% to 100% load) |
Voltage Ripple (mV) | |||||
20% Load | 50% Load | 75% Load | 100% Load | CL1 12V |
CL2 3.3V + 5V |
||
3.3V | 2,4% | 6 | 8 | 14 | 16 | 16 | 20 |
5V | 2,4% | 14 | 16 | 18 | 22 | 16 | 20 |
12V | 0,8% | 12 | 18 | 24 | 30 | 34 | 26 |
Operation in high ambient temperatures greatly affects the performance of the Steampunk Gold 750W PSU, especially at higher loads. The average nominal load range (20%-100%) efficiency drops by 1.2% regardless of the input voltage, going down to an average of 91.4% (230 VAC) / 89.9% (115 VAC). There is little change at lower loads but at loads greater than 80% the efficiency drops sharply, suggesting that the components of the PSU are getting stressed under these conditions. Thermal stress would be our first guess but the internal temperatures of the PSU actually are low, therefore we suspect that certain components are reaching their design limit.
As mentioned above, the internal temperatures of the 1STPlayer Steampunk 750W PSU are relatively low for a unit operating inside our hotbox. The thermal controller is aggressively increasing the speed of the fan under these operating conditions, trying to maintain as low as temperatures as possible, sacrificing silence in order to ensure reliability. With such a powerful fan, the cooling headroom is vast, but the noise levels become unbearable for typical users at loads higher than 200 Watts. The cooling fan’s speed seems to peak when the unit is at maximum load, where the sound pressure level nearly reaches 59 dB(A).
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six_tymes - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
true, anything to help when running power hungry heat maker amd chips.Icehawk - Tuesday, May 12, 2020 - link
Does it come with a set of brass goggles?Spunjji - Tuesday, May 12, 2020 - link
Now this is a comment I can get behind 😎1_rick - Tuesday, May 12, 2020 - link
They didn't even stick any[1] gears on it! How can they call it steampunk?[1] I'm not counting the crude drawing on the fan.
Deicidium369 - Tuesday, May 12, 2020 - link
I mean a little brass at least...anirudhs - Tuesday, May 12, 2020 - link
Does Steampunk plan to offer SFX\SFX-L power supplies?Deicidium369 - Tuesday, May 12, 2020 - link
Did you read the review? If you did you wouldn't care about anything else from this company.lmcd - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
They're a sane fan profile away from a solid power supply. Given that ITX loads tend to be even lower and less likely to use 3.3V and 5V lines, it's possible a market entrant with supply chain advantages could choose to undercut the 500W SFX-L power supply market.ozzuneoj86 - Tuesday, May 12, 2020 - link
Lets write Steampunk on the side of a product and not actually have any even remotely Steampunk themed cosmetic features.Seriously... I know gears, brass and shades of brown aren't exactly new and innovative ideas, but I think it's actually worse to just use the name of a cliche "theme" without having any of it's features.
anirudhs - Tuesday, May 12, 2020 - link
Maybe a Bioshock special edition? :-P