The Gigabyte UD1000GM PG5 1000W PSU Review: Prelude to ATX 3.0
by E. Fylladitakis on June 23, 2022 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- PSUs
- Gigabyte
- 1000W
- 80Plus Gold
- ATX v3.0
- 12VHPWR
Hot Test Results (~45°C Ambient)
Despite its lengthy warranty, the components of the UD1000GM PG5 left us unimpressed and our testing verified our initial assumptions. The PSU suffers when it has to operate inside a very hot environment, with the efficiency taking a brutal drop at high loads. The average efficiency reduction of 1% across the nominal load range does not seem that high but the efficiency drop is very high when the load is greater than 800 Watts, suggesting severe thermal stress.
Despite the very high ambient temperature, the fan of the GIGABYTE UD1000GM PG5 failed to start right away with the unit operating inside our hotbox. This resulted to worryingly high temperature readings at low loads. Once the fan started, the temperature dropped significantly, rising little by little as the load increased. The temperature does reach high figures again once the unit is heavily loaded but always stays within operating levels.
Even though it does not start right away, as expected, the 120 mm fan is giving its all to keep the GIGABYTE UD1000GM PG5 cool enough under these adverse operating conditions. The very moment is starts, the fan will be audible to the user, rapidly increasing in speed as the load increases. It reaches its maximum speed when the load is just a little higher than 50% of the unit’s capacity, valiantly trying to keep the PSU reliable and operational. The noise figures are above 50 dB(A), a figure that will annoy even the most tolerant of people if they are not wearing headphones – or ear protection.
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Khanan - Friday, June 24, 2022 - link
This makes a lot of sense and I agree with this. Same shit they did with recent PSUs, didn’t accept it’s trash and wanted to sell it anyway via Newegg bundles. Hot trash, just sell it fast instead of recalling. Everyone knows what happened after, a PR disaster, there are multiple videos about in on gamersnexus YouTube. Gigabyte nowadays seems to be like a hit or miss, you really should know what’s good and what’s not with them or you risk buying trash or a mediocre product. With this PSU it’s pretty fine, I just don’t get why they put such a cheap fan in it.Leeea - Thursday, June 23, 2022 - link
Anandtech, you are familiar with the rather recent Gigabyte power supply debacle? The recall for "known to occasionally catch fire"?The one where it appeared they realized they had a massive issue with PSU quality
then worked with newegg to dump this defective stock on unsuspecting customers
were outed by Gamers Nexus and others for this blatant anti-consumer behavior
and lastly, recalled the defective models because they were "known to occasionally catch fire"
That was September 2021, not long ago.
https://www.google.com/search?q=gigabyte+power+sup...
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/gigabyte-full-re...
I would think the most important detail in any Gigabyte power supply review would be to address the question:
Will this light on fire?
with pretty much everything else being a distant second concern.
Threska - Thursday, June 23, 2022 - link
Clearly running Crysis would be a bad idea.Khanan - Friday, June 24, 2022 - link
He did a high current test and the PSU passed so yes it’s fine. The issue was with cheaper models, this is a bit more expensive.Leeea - Friday, June 24, 2022 - link
He did many very good tests, and for all the questions not related to "Will this light on fire?" the review was excellent.However, if I remember right, to spontaneously ignite a Gigabyte PSU they were triggering the OCP. It would work once or twice, but the majority of tested units failed with considerable drama.
Thing is, when a GPU pushes its transients up and triggers the OCP, most users do not realize why their computer just shut down. This results most users who trigger OCP triggering it several times in a row.
Which on Gigabytes previous models, was rolling the dice on an unfortunate and dramatic failure. Or as Tom's Hardware put it: "known to occasionally catch fire"
While E. Fylladitakis's testing was excellent and exhaustive, it does not appear he tested the known failure mode for Gigabyte power supplies.
It is also unlikely anyone could answer the question: "Will this light on fire?", because considering Gigabytes recent history, who knows?
DanNeely - Friday, June 24, 2022 - link
Anandtech editors work from home. Deliberately trying to trigger a fire starting failure mode almost certainly goes against E. Fylladitakis's insurance and/or rental agreements. It's the sort of thing that needs to be done in commercial/industrial spaces with fire suppression and enhanced insurance coverage.After the recent debacle, I hope GN does attempt to trigger similar failures in other PSUs but disagree that it should be part of a standard for all reviewers going forward.
Leeea - Friday, June 24, 2022 - link
You make good points.Gamers Nexus did try a whole bunch of other brands, including no name Amazon Brands. They discovered a bunch of Amazon/Ebay brands were lying about their 80+ efficiency, but they were not able to get any of the other brands to self combust.
I suppose for a home reviewer getting a RMA on GPU with scorch marks not going to be doable.
I guess it is one of those catch 22 moments, where if he mentions it people are going to ask why he did not test it, and if he does not mention it people like me are going to pitchfork him.
That said, I do feel consumers should know Gigabyte has a recent history of selling very questionable PSUs while appearing to ignore reports of disaster with said PSUs.
E.Fyll - Friday, June 24, 2022 - link
If that is enough to put your mind at ease, I always test all of the primary safety mechanisms of every PSU. This includes OPP and it worked as expected. If it did not, I would be yet another reviewer with a dead sample on my bench anyway.I am familiar with the issues GB had to deal with. The new revisions, although far from perfect, at least will not blow up while playing minecraft.
Leeea - Friday, June 24, 2022 - link
Thank you!Kaggy - Thursday, June 23, 2022 - link
Wonder if ATX PSUs will eventually graduate from ATX and become smaller through GAN technology.