Seasonic S12G 650W Power Supply Review
by E. Fylladitakis on February 28, 2014 2:20 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Seasonic
- 80 Plus Gold
Final Words and Conclusion
Today we witnessed the reason why Seasonic is so popular amongst enthusiasts and advanced users. The 650W version of the S12G is not the cheapest of its range and class, it has no extravagant features, and it is not even modular. When you look at it, it is yet another all-black ATX PSU; not even the ribbon-like black cables are in any way special nowadays. You can easily find an 80 Plus Gold certified and modular 650W PSU for around the same price.
On the other hand, when it comes to build and power quality, the Seasonic S12G can easily make most of its competition shudder. Seasonic usually picks very high quality components for their units and the S12G is no exception, with most of the primary components and all of the capacitors coming from Japanese brands -- and the S12G is their mainstream series, not their high-end brand! That alone says a lot about Seasonic's commitment to quality and why they so easily cover a mainstream unit with a five-year warranty.
Looking at the performance charts and tables, the Seasonic S12G could probably be offering the best all-around performance within its price range. The DC output power quality is excellent and the voltage ripple suppression is remarkable. Since voltage ripple is directly correlated with the longevity of electronic equipment, especially capacitors (it causes self-heating), very low ripple readings benefit the durability of your system's components. The energy conversion efficiency is very high and it maintains its high efficiency and quiet operation even inside a very warm environment.
Its Achilles' heel is that the S12G tends to run a little hot if heavily loaded for prolonged periods of time while inside a very warm environment; however, the only real-world scenario that we can imagine that would replicate such conditions is that of a powerful cryptocoin mining system built inside a poorly designed chassis. If you are planning to use the Seasonic S12G for powering such a system in a $20 case, that probably is a bad idea. However, if you are looking to buy a PSU for its high quality and performance and consider aesthetics and modularity to be secondary or unnecessary features, the Seasonic S12G is definitely worthy of strong consideration.
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platos - Saturday, March 1, 2014 - link
I also want to see low wattage small form factor PSUs like the picoPSU and compatible bricks. I'm personally moving away from large desktops for my DIY PCs. I'm even hoping for pico and nano-ITX boards and cases to become popular.I'm guessing large desktops will mostly be confined to companies in the near future and they are more likely to buy PSUs as part of a complete system so they wouldn't directly care about individual PSU ratings.
E.Fyll - Saturday, March 1, 2014 - link
" My homeserver is pulling 35W from the wall right at this moment. "If you are not using a true RMS meter to read this figure, I am afraid that your actual power draw is way off. Especially with the PSU that you are using.
Daniel Egger - Sunday, March 2, 2014 - link
Actually that's what my APC UPS tells me which is also continuously read out so I also know the load profile over time and can even correlate with the temperature.Not too much of a fan reconnecting 24/7 servers too often from the mains just put different power reading hardware in between I must say.
From what I can tell the readings from the UPS is quite accurate: I've tested it with a variety of computer and other IT equipment using switching PSUs with a true RMS meter in between.
E.Fyll - Sunday, March 2, 2014 - link
The UPS has no true RMS reading, sorry...emn13 - Saturday, March 1, 2014 - link
It's the GPU's that are costing you. I've got a standard voltage, overclocked 4770k which is currently fully loaded and it's using 97W at the wall outlet; it idles at 20W - that's including power supply overhead. With some undervolting rather than overclocking I can get that down to 15W, with 1HDD and 3SSDs, but my motherboard isn't very friendly to undervolting so I decided it wasn't worth the bother.A single GPU, even if it's not the top of the line, can easily consume more than the entire rest of your system. You say you have two GPU's? Well, there you go: 20W for the base system, 20W for each GPU and you're in about the right ballpark.
mike55 - Friday, February 28, 2014 - link
Excellent article! I would definitely be interested in seeing an article about how to choose the right PSU. There is a lot of information out there, but a lot of it seems to suggest PSUs that can provide a lot more power than what I think should be necessary, resulting in less than optimal power conversion efficiency. It would be nice to see some more objective information. Although, I suppose there is some value in getting something over sized for future proofing. Especially for a quality PSU at less than $100.Egg - Friday, February 28, 2014 - link
IIRC the Seasonic X650 used to be this price with a modular interface. Well, I guess since the quality is just as good, and possibly even more efficient, we can hope for sales.tynopik - Friday, February 28, 2014 - link
where's the description of the cable?There used to be a chart breaking down each cable and the lengths to each connector:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6168/rosewill-fortre...
also, isn't a shot of the wattage chart de rigeur?
extide - Saturday, March 1, 2014 - link
x2 these should be includedPcgeek21 - Friday, February 28, 2014 - link
I agree with Daniel; I would be very interested in the performance/efficiency of low wattage power supplies (200W-300W peak output). I run relatively low power servers at home 24/7 such that the 5W delta in power draw can add up over the 4-5 year lifetime of the equipment.I purchased an Antec EarthWatts EA-450 (http://www.eteknix.com/antec-earthwatts-platinum-4... several months ago for my current server. I would be very interested in determining if it was a worthwhile investment or if there are any better alternatives available on the market.
I look forward to more PSU reviews.