Seasonic Platinum Series 860W - Platinum without the Fuss
by Martin Kaffei on February 24, 2012 12:00 AM ESTProbably the Best PSU Ever!
The Seasonic Platinum 860W is the best current Seasonic product, and very probably the best power supply available at this time. The delivery contents and the number of connectors are at least above average. The internal design, the fan, and the excellent measurements surpass all current solutions from their competition. Clever ideas like the switch for active or semi-passive cooling operation are welcome extras and work without any complications.
Inside Seasonic uses a powerful variation of the well known resonant converter. As usual, the manufacturer implemented the latest silicon carbide diode in the primary circuit and very good MOSFETs. With a mains filter and further components for EMI filtering the PSU is very well equipped. Other manufacturers tried to cut components here in order to improve efficiency, but here Seasonic still includes passive surge protection and inrush current limitation. As expected, Seasonic uses high-quality Japanese capacitors and very good PCB materials. However, even Seasonic is not safe from problems. We saw ferrite beads on two Gate connectors (part of a MOSFET).
Perhaps the PFC control circuit should get a multi-layer design, since some conducting paths are used for different circuits. This might be a source for differential mode interferences and the reason why ferrite beads are necessary. Apparently Seasonic seems to have no problems with the frequency range of their buck converters used for 3.3V and 5V—some engineers bet on HF litz wires on the storage inductors or reduce the frequency with an external circuit. In addition the ESL (Equivalent Series Inductance) of capacitors gets more and more important. Regardless, Seasonic integrated well chosen components and the soldering quality is impressive.
As noted on the previous page, the Platinum 860W showed no significant weaknesses, only the usual strengths of Seasonic. The ripple and noise voltage is never higher than about 30mV at 12V, and the smaller outputs show even lower results. Moreover there is no significant voltage drop at higher loads; all output voltages are very well regulated. Only the chirping of the PFC inductor becomes noticeable if you are close enough; in a closed PC case the noise should not be audible. Right up to higher loads the fan is quiet—or even inaudible below 40% load if the semi-passive mode is activated. Up to 93% efficiency can be achieved with this design and even at 10% load efficiency is still very good. At very low load the regulation effort is usually high—measured against the operating current. This causes high power loss during low load.
Seasonic has no problem with these power losses and even passive components such as filtering coils can't stop Seasonic from reaching and exceeding the 80 Plus Platinum requirements. That might sound strange at first, but FSP for example changed the input differential-mode choke into two single wires with a ferrite core. The lower inductive reactance opens the doors for differential mode interferences. Other manufacturers try to remove important parts such as OCP to reduce power dissipation. The solution from Seasonic is a major advance, which makes the power supply the flagship in its class. A high efficiency should always be compatible with constant quality, which doesn't mean other solutions wouldn't be acceptable as well. FSP tried to make low prices for their Platinum PSUs—an understandable step.
The larger Platimax models (>1000W) from Enermax might have more extras than the Platinum 860W, but Seasonic includes plenty of extras as well and at least matches what you get with the Platimax 750W. The 60 to 65cm motherboard and GPU connectors are extremely long, and the Platinum 860W can support up to four PEG, eleven SATA, and eight HDD connections. In particular, the number of SATA connectors is very satisfying, and the high quality cable sleeving is another reason to buy this product.
The direct competitors include the already mentioned Enermax Platimax 750W / Platimax 850W and the Golden King Platinum design (Kingwin LZP-750) from Super Flower. The latter offering isn't just questionable in name, but the missing overcurrent protection and MOV are also a major drawback. As such, we wouldn't put that particular unit in the same category as the Seasonic; Super Flower products in general use cheaper quality. In price and quality Enermax Platimax is close to the Seasonic Platinum, but Seasonic clearly demonstrates better soldering quality and uses extensive EMI filtering. The Seasonic Platinum 860W is currently available for $220, which is $20 less than the best price we can currently find on the Enermax Platimax 850W. Given all of these factors, there is only one possible ending: the Seasonic Platinum 860W deservedly earns our Gold Editors' Choice Award for being as good as one's word—and in some cases, even better.
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kmmatney - Friday, February 24, 2012 - link
Yup. I'd really like one of these, but find it hard to justify the big price jump to get to platinum efficiency. You can get all the PSU you need (Corsair GS800) for $115. It is nice, though. I'm still running a Corsair TX650 which I bought 5 years ago for $90 or so.Hrel - Friday, February 24, 2012 - link
Most seasonics have NO noise under about half load. Why is this one noisy? Also what's with the "electrical noise". I don't wanna hear a damn thing. "Best power supply ever", psh, not if I can hear it.palindrome - Friday, February 24, 2012 - link
Martin,It is hard to take much stock from your review. Especially when you write a garbage conclusion that claims Super Flower products a bad product because of their name. The last Super Flower manufactured PSU reviewed on Anandtech was 10/16/2008 by Christoph Katzer. Also, your testing equipment and methodology is not listed in this article. For all we, as readers, know, you could be using a kill-a-watt and a RadioShack multimeter. You should also list your error tolerance for your readings, no matter what equipment you are using. When I read this article, I thought I might have mistakenly been redirected to Tom's for a moment.
I'm sure reviewers such as yourself all have opinions and incentives to write nice reviews for the generous companies who give you free, expensive toys to play with. However, you should let your test results do the talking and provide some of the basic information, such as methodology, just like we all learned in 5th grade science class, so that you can be much more credible. This isn't the worst PSU review I've seen from a major tech site (Tom's has that locked down tight), but I certainly expect more from Anandtech.
Time to get flamed by the herd.
smilingcrow - Friday, February 24, 2012 - link
We’re not worthy.I have the 400W Gold fanless version and we’ve set a date for the autumn.
Crypticone - Friday, February 24, 2012 - link
I would really like to see some real world usage testing. Clearly every uses computers in a different manner and I am not sure the best way to go about it.Much like you have a very standardized testing bed for computer cases. It would be nice to have some measure of power usage over a certain period of time.
Using the same computer setup run the system for two hours at idle speed measuring power usage. Then two hours looping some gaming type benchmark. Then two hours of scripted web browsing. Then an hour fully loading the CPU with prime. Then maybe two hours of streaming media to a media player of some sort.
Then it would be nice to see how much power is saved between the units. It would be interesting to see where the mock breakeven point is power savings vs the added cost of these new pricey power supplies vs a gold or silver rated PSU.
This might be more of a feature article then something done for every PSU you review.
John Doe - Friday, February 24, 2012 - link
That SuperFlower you just threw off in a whim makes a unit that outdoes the Platinum 1000; the LZP-1000.http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article/2012/01/04/k...
It gets about 30mV ripple against the 60's of the SeaSonic, has quicker transient turn-on response and sells for $70 cheaper.
One of the main goals of a review is to be subjective, which is what this review is not. This is a load of garbage.
smilingcrow - Saturday, February 25, 2012 - link
From the review you linked to:“If you want the absolute best power supply we have seen then you still want the Seasonic Platinum-1000.”
And you want a review to be objective not subjective!
Martin Kaffei - Saturday, February 25, 2012 - link
John,I got an XFX PSU which is exactly like the 1KW version from Seasonic and I never saw more than 30 mV as well.
Does HardOCP measure with capacitors conformable to ATX specification? You need them to simulate system load, otherwise the results do not apply to a real PC.
Hereunder Seasonic might be worse than SuperFlower, but your PC doesn't get the pure ripple. With ATX test environments Seasonic is always as good as or even better than SuperFlower.
John Doe - Saturday, February 25, 2012 - link
What're you on about? Yes, Paul puts all the units in an incubutor for at least 8 hours. And you? Have you even explained your test methodology? You aren't making any sense and aren't fooling anybody with little SMPS knowledge.If you look at Oklahoma Wolf's results, you can find the same. The Golden King 1000 (which you labeled as a joke just because of it's name) usually has lower ripple, better transient response, better cooling and sells for cheaper. The only thing the SeaSonic has over it is better regulation.
It's clear that either you're unknowledgeable or you have a personal agenda, with the latter making more sense. Excuse my bluntness, but you're diviving into pure nonsense.
DanNeely - Saturday, February 25, 2012 - link
You've got 28 pins on the PSU for a 24pin cable.