FSP Aurum 92+ 650W 80 PLUS Platinum PSU Review

[Guest]

In our ongoing exploration of mid-range power supplies with 80 PLUS Platinum efficiency ratings, FSP's Aurum 92+ is forced to stand up against the Corsair PSU we already reviewed. Can you expect great things from a 650W unit with a beefy spec sheet?

FSP Aurum 92+ 650W 80 PLUS Platinum PSU Review : Read more

 

[dish_moose]

Letting ratings that are not met "slide" is not acceptable. It either meets all requirements or it's not Platinum. A fan that runs continuously and noisy as well? I'm NOT putting this supply on my list of PSUs I would recommend or would like to own.
-Bruce

 

[Wolfwerx]

"...efficiency at 100% duty cycle is only 88.34% (instead of the required 90%). Similar to the Corsair review, though, we're letting this slide. A miss by 0.66% ..."

Please check your math.

 

[InvalidError]

Letting ratings that are not met "slide" is not acceptable. It either meets all requirements or it's not Platinum.

I see no link to test methodology here. If you have 0.1% accuracy on voltage measurements and 0.3% on current for both the input and outputs, you already have a 0.8% uncertainty directly from your measurement equipment. Then you have the test setup errors: if you use leads between the PSU's cables and your electronic loads and make voltage measurements at the load, you fail to account for wiring losses - you need electronic loads with remote sense to make voltage measurements at the PSU's cables instead of the load's terminals. This can throw measurements off by a considerable amount at high currents - such as when testing a PSU at 100% load.

There is also the possibility that line input voltage, ambient temperature and other parameters may not have been at exactly 80+ test spec, all of which can easily account for the bulk of a 0.66% miss.

Unless the measurement equipment and methodology are more accurate than 0.5%, 0.66% is well within measurement error margins.

Edit: oops, that was supposed to be 1.66%. In any case, the potential for measurement errors can easily be that bad too.

 

[dish_moose]

InvalidError makes some very good points. Methodology, proper equipment (Calibrated with certificates), and controlled environment all are key to to any type of testing.
-Bruce
Garbage in - garbage out!

 

[oczdude8]

only 575W available on 12V rails? That's very suspicious.... Seems to me like poor design.

 

[InvalidError]

only 575W available on 12V rails? That's very suspicious.... Seems to me like poor design.

That's only 75W for 3.3V, 5V, 5VSB and -12V combined. All your USB ports are powered by the 5V rail, so you want at 5A or so there just for that. Many GPUs draw 10-25W from the 3.3V rail for bus and memory voltage regulation, so that's another 5-10A there. The motherboard, SSD, HDD, add-in boards, miscellaneous support circuitry, etc. also draw from 3.3V and 5V.

I think 75W is a relatively fair amount of power budget to set aside for secondary rails in a group-regulated PSU. It "looks suspicious" only because the bulk of 80+ Gold or better PSUs use DC-DC converters for the other rails. Fortron managing Platinum (albeit just barely, after considering unknown equipment and test uncertainty) with a group-regulated design means more affordable high-efficiency PSUs might be on their way.

 

[oczdude8]

only 575W available on 12V rails? That's very suspicious.... Seems to me like poor design.

That's only 75W for 3.3V, 5V, 5VSB and -12V combined. All your USB ports are powered by the 5V rail, so you want at 5A or so there just for that. Many GPUs draw 10-25W from the 3.3V rail for bus and memory voltage regulation, so that's another 5-10A there. The motherboard, SSD, HDD, add-in boards, miscellaneous support circuitry, etc. also draw from 3.3V and 5V.

I think 75W is a relatively fair amount of power budget to set aside for secondary rails in a group-regulated PSU. It "looks suspicious" only because the bulk of 80+ Gold or better PSUs use DC-DC converters for the other rails. Fortron managing Platinum (albeit just barely, after considering unknown equipment and test uncertainty) with a group-regulated design means more affordable high-efficiency PSUs might be on their way.

That's the thing. That's not very good design, which is further complemented by the loud fan.

Now If they do sell it at a good price, then that would be great, but I have a feeling that they will be selling this at a premium (close to any other platinum PSU) just because it is a platinum rated PSU.

 

[InvalidError]

That's the thing. That's not very good design

There is nothing inherently wrong with group-regulated PSUs aside from generally worse cross-loading performance. Unfortunately, this review omits any sort of cross-loading and output voltage regulation tests, so there is no data to comment on how well FSP's group-regulated design fared here. In today's 12V-centric builds though, extreme cross-loading from the minor rails would be extremely uncommon so, unless FSP screwed up, I would expect the PSU to still be decent under typical use.

 

[oczdude8]

That's the thing. That's not very good design

There is nothing inherently wrong with group-regulated PSUs aside from generally worse cross-loading performance. Unfortunately, this review omits any sort of cross-loading and output voltage regulation tests, so there is no data to comment on how well FSP's group-regulated design fared here. In today's 12V-centric builds though, extreme cross-loading from the minor rails would be extremely uncommon so, unless FSP screwed up, I would expect the PSU to still be decent under typical use.

Yes that's true. Crossloading is not too big of an issue these days, and actually I just realized this PSU was made in 2012.... Now it makes sense why it would be designed as such. I just knew there would be no way a recently made PSU would employ this design.

 

[youssef 2010]

There are a lot of questionable things in this PSU. Some things about it feel rushed.