Seasonic Core GX 850 ATX 3 Review

1. Introduction2. Bundle & Cabling3. External4. Internal5. Testing Methodology and Results6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

The Seasonic Core GX 850 delivered very good results in our testing over the last few weeks and while it took me a little longer to get this review published over the Christmas period, we feel this power supply deserves a recommendation.

The GX is not a high end power supply range from Seasonic, instead it sits right in the middle of their stack, below the Prime and Focus units targeting demanding enthusiast users, and above the G12 and B12 supplies – which target the lower end audience and system integrators.

Technically the unit is solid and delivered quality power throughout the range. Load regulation is good and it passed the cross load test without issue. Ripple suppression was good, if not class leading – falling within safe industry rated parameters throughout the range.

Efficiency results were pretty good and the unit remained cool at all times – at the expense of rising noise as the load increased. Below 400 watts, the power supply would not be audible inside a modern day chassis, but when demand goes over 700 watts, the fan ramps up a lot to deal with rising heat. This isn't the best fan we have seen from Hong Hua, but i would imagine a little bit of cost cutting has to be undertaken to achieve more competitive price points for Seasonic.

On a similar note, I was surprised to see a TEAPO taiwanese capacitor in this unit as Seasonic mostly use Japanese capacitors from the likes of Nippon Chemi Con, Rubycon or Nichicon. Thankfully it is a 105c rated unit, and not 85C. Clearly  this move to Chinese/Taiwanese caps is to save a few dollars per unit. We are unable to really test these capacitors long term and give them a solid rating, but we hope TEAPO standards are a little higher than a few that failed on us around 10 years ago. We are hopeful that standards have improved since then.

The Core GX range of power supplies come with a 7 year warranty, which is less than the Focus range at 10 years, and the Prime range at 12 years. Their lower G12 and B12 units only ship with a 5 year warranty so it appears Seasonic have a little more faith in this Core GX design than the budget products they still sell.

Right now we do not have confirmed UK pricing, but as we can see above, the EU pricing for this is around 130 euros. USA get a confirmed $130 price as well, so we will assume the UK will be paying between £120-£130 – as prices here are always higher than simple conversions. At this price it is a solid buy (closer to £120 would be good), but we can't help but feel people should shop around for the best deal they can find – THIS quick check on SCAN UK shows pricing is at the upper end of the 80 Plus Gold category for an 850W unit.

Pros:

• Technically solid.
• small footprint of 140mm.
• nice quality cables.
• load regulation.
• fully modular.
• solid build quality.
• 80 plus gold certified.

Cons:

• looks to be quite costly for the 80 Plus Gold sector.
• TEAPO Chinese/Taiwanese caps.
• only a 7 year warranty.
• 120mm fan can get a bit loud under heavier loud.
• white version might be hard to get in different parts of the world.

Kitguru says: Another fine performing power supply from Seasonic targeting the mid range audience. 

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