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Seasonic Prime Titanium Fanless 600W PSU Review

Additional technical assistance: Peter McFarland and Jeremy Price.

Correctly testing power supplies is a complex procedure and KitGuru have configured a test bench which can deliver up to a 2,000 watt DC load. Due to public requests we have changed our temperature settings recently – previously we rated with ambient temperatures at 25C, we have increased ambient temperatures by 10c (to 35c) in our environment to greater reflect warmer internal chassis conditions.

We use combinations of the following hardware:

• SunMoon SM-268
• CSI3710A Programmable DC load (+3.3V and +5V outputs)
• CSI3711A Programmable DC load (+12V1, +12V2, +12V3, and +12V4)
• Extech Power Analyzer
• Extech MultiMaster MM570 digital multimeter
• SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter (6-130dBa)
• Digital oscilloscope (20M S/s with 12 Bit ADC)
• Variable Autotransformer, 1.4 KVA

DC Output Load Regulation

Combined

DC Load

+3.3V
+5V
+12V
+5VSB
-12V
A
V
A
V
A
V
A
V
A V
75W
0.92
3.34
0.95
5.01
3.90
12.07
0.50
5.01
0.20
-12.03
150W
1.60
3.34
1.60
5.01
8.20
12.06
1.00
5.00
0.20
-12.03
300W
3.02
3.33
3.10
5.01
21.94
12.06
1.50
5.00
0.20
-12.03
450W
4.15
3.33
4.10
5.01
33.56
12.03
2.00
5.00
0.30
-12.03
600W
5.16
3.33
5.30
5.00
45.26
12.01
2.50
4.99
0.30
-12.02

Load regulation is class leading – the +3.3V and +5V rails hold within 1% and the +12V rail holds within 2%.

Seasonic Prime Titanium Fanless 600W Maximum Load
667W

We managed to get 667W out of the power supply before it shut down.

Next we want to try Cross Loading. This basically means loads which are not balanced. If a PC for instance needs 500W on the +12V outputs but something like 30W via the combined 3.3V and +5V outputs then the voltage regulation can fluctuate badly.

Cross Load Testing +3.3V +5V +12V -12V +5VSB
A V A V A V A V A V
590W 1.0 3.34 1.0 5.01 46.0 11.99 0.2 -12.01 0.50 5.00
145W 12.0 3.32 15.0 4.99 2.0 12.07 0.2 -12.01 0.50 5.01

This power supply has no problems passing the cross load tests with flying colours.

We then used an oscilloscope to measure AC ripple and noise present on the DC outputs. We set the oscilloscope time base to check for AC ripple at both high and low ends of the spectrum. ATX12V V2.2 specification for DC output ripple and noise is defined in the ATX 12V power supply design guide.

ATX12V Ver 2.2 Noise/Ripple Tolerance
Output
Ripple (mV p-p)
+3.3V
50
+5V
50
+12V1
120
+12V2
120
-12V
120
+5VSB
50

Obviously when measuring AC noise and ripple on the DC outputs the cleaner (less recorded) means we have a better end result. We measured this AC signal amplitude to see how closely the unit complied with the ATX standard.

AC Ripple (mV p-p)
DC Load +3.3V +5V +12V 5VSB
75W 5 5 5 5
150W 5 5 5 5
300W 5 5 10 5
450W 5 5 10 5
600W 5
10 15 5

Ripple suppression is stellar, maintaining a position within the top couple of percent of units we have tested in the last 2 years.

Efficiency (%) 230V
75W
92.35
150W
94.45
300W
96.12
450W
94.69
600W
93.46

Efficiency peaks at just over 96 percent at 50% load, which is a fantastic result. At full load the efficiency drops to 93.46 % which is again, very impressive.

We take the issue of noise very seriously at KitGuru and this is why we have built a special home brew system as a reference point when we test noise levels of various components. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on components we are testing. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

Today to test the Power Supply we have taken it into our acoustics room environment and have set our SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter (6-130dBa) one meter away from the unit. We have no other fans running so we can effectively measure just the noise from the unit itself.

As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 Player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

Noise (dBA)
75W
<28.0
150W
<28.0
300W
<28.0
450W
<28.0
600W <28.0

The graph above gets me excited – almost the same experience I had watching Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman a few weeks ago. Both are quite beautiful in their own individual way.

Temperature (c)
Intake
Exhaust
75W
35
43
150W
35
49
300W
37
55
450W
41
62
600W
44
69

As this is passively cooled the temperatures are a little higher than most of the units we have reviewed in recent months. Still perfectly fine however.

Maximum load
Efficiency
667W
92.4

At 667 watts, the efficiency rating drops to 92.4%. Not a realistic situation to be running at all the time but interesting nonetheless.

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28 comments

  1. Well…. damn.

    600w doesn’t cover my needs, but still if I was building a single gpu high end gaming system, this would certainly be my go to it looks like. I always love high end seasonic units, this one looks to be no exception.

  2. Awesome power supply, it is a little expensive though. Most people who want to spend 200 on a PSU go for a higher end system with 2 GPU’s I assume and for that, this one is not strong enough.

  3. good luck !!

  4. If it would have been 700-750 Watt it would have been perfect for me.

  5. How were the temperatures measured? Was a thermocouple on top of the thing? IR reading on the heat sinks?

    Seeing that the warranty is twelve years seems to indicate that it’s not a major factor, but still, the warranty is less than the seals on the capacitors are rated (26 or so years for the rubber to degrade).

  6. Now even power supplies come wearing fishnets >.<

  7. I can’t believe there are people who say that this PSU “is not strong enough”. How stupid are you ? Let’s me explain: most high-end desktop CPUs & GPUs rarely exceed 100W on full load, premium ones go up to 150W and only the most powerful ones (Titan, Vega, etc.) _may_ go _near_ 200W. Quality PSUs are rated only by their _single_ 12V line in _real_ numbers while having 10-20% max power surplus to work in continuous overload while CPU/GPU recommendations are written for fake shitty PSUs so CPU/GPU manufacturers wouldn’t get sued if their hardware fails on a shitty PSU with fake power rating. Also, SLI & Crossfire are terribly power-inefficient in comparison to a single big chip solutions, especially considering PCI-E/PCI-E and PCI-E/RAM bus bottlenecks, maybe if desktops had OpenCAPI bus…

    True 600W PSU may work with top CPU and 3-4 top GPUs on full load and you think that your 2 puny GPUs will saturate it ? Seriously ?! Goddamn amateurs.

  8. Do you think we’ll eventually have an option for a power supply that has greater efficiency than titanium+ ? My room is always hot without my bronze+ psu in use, but of course hotter with it on. I’m going to upgrade to titanium plus to lower it some, but would buy even more efficient if it was on the market.

  9. what are your system specs?

  10. currently i’m sitting on a delidded 7900x @ 4.9ghz, 32gb ddr4 @ 4266mhz (the rampage 6 apex is a monster for memory oc’ing) and 2x titan xp’s. Total heavy load power draw comes to just over 1100w peaks.

  11. WOW! This PSU looks fantastic… I need a new PSU and I will have to save up for this one

  12. Κωνσταντίνος Κ.

    I somewhat agree with you on some levels, 600w are pretty much more than enough BUT “most high-end desktop CPUs & GPUs rarely exceed 100W on full load” ..totally wrong

    My system uses ~80-100 watt on idle and 280-320w on full load (AMD FX 8320, AMD Radeon 7870 GHz edition 8GB x2 Ram, 1 mechanical drive and one PCI-e SSD(NVME) – Measured this via external meter. Currently having a Thermatake Toughpower XT 775W that I’ll give to my brother to get this one, prefer to make my system a bit more silent

  13. How is it wrong ? ~100-125W for CPU + ~100-150W for GPU + HDDs/USB and such = ~250-350W. And your stuff is from older generations: 32nm CPU and 28nm GPU. Current AMD Ryzen CPUs and RX GPUs are 14nm with almost twice higher power efficiency which is why they have lower heating and higher frequencies by default (well, not x86 CPUs because their frequencies are fake, they have a bunch of “multiple cycles instructions” and weird predictions which recently were declared defective by design due to “Meltdown” vulnerability). My FX-6100 at 4 GHz and RX 580 at 1,3 Ghz don’t exceed 100W each (well, GPU may go to ~125W on non-stop 100% load) which I specifically calibrated them to. One can overclock his CPU and GPU to 150W and 200W or more but that is quite stupid thing to do which will generally give +5-15% of computation for +50-150% of energy. Better to just buy larger chips on smaller transistors with more compute units (“cores”).

    Before giving/selling old PSUs better check to if their power output have started degrading (<11,950V on 12V line or such) which may mean that they may be dangerous to use: they will degrade other hardware or their capacitors will violently explode. You may need to replace capacitors (good luck finding good ones), starting from the main one, and oiling fan's pivot may be necessary to avoid its failure and increased noise due to wear.

  14. Κωνσταντίνος Κ.

    Dude there are many 125w cpu’s out there, the fact that you don’t use them doesn’t mean all do the same, snap out of this …get a threadripper and have even higher consumption …still a 600W psu is good and would be just fine

    P.S. ALL BUT ALL PSU’s perform best at 50% load so 300W is the sweet spot or near it thus u need twice the wattage to get optimal performance from the psu

    P.S. I don’t need to check my psu, it works just fine 775W and a total of 900+W before shutting down is way way wayyy higher than what my system needs, I just need a quiter psu(fanless seems great) ..I’m a pc builder so I’ll sell my used psu to someone, he’ll appriciate the cheap price for a quality psu instead of a cheap typical psu(no brand)

  15. Κωνσταντίνος Κ.

    over 1100W real power ..nah half that? probably 😀

    Even on HIGH demanding games you won’t use the full power(250w x2) of the GPU’s ..unless mining and still that’s 500W(at best) cpu lets say 250w(which is false but lets say u use that power) 750W …rams? no more than a few watts(less than 20w) so even with too “thick” numbers you’re less than 770W(WAAAAAAAAY less)

    Actual power needed? 500-600W 😀 and this PSU can spike at 10% more so 660W(for short period) …it covers your system easily, unless you mining with 100% GPU’s and CPU(which I doubt) – Watts are not peanuts, get real 😛

  16. How possible 25W difference pertains to anything I’ve said ? Also, higher power usage does not mean better computation or more modern production, in fact, mostly it means the opposite. The point is that morons seems to believe that GPUs use something along 300-500W just because that’s what their manufacturers “recommend” which is objectively false and you seem to well know that. So I’m not sure what you even trying to argue.

    Threadripper only uses that much because it’s factory-overclocked, same with Vega which is OCed to ~1550MHz over it’s “native” ~1250Mhz or with RAM that is rated on non-standard voltage. That is a shitty thing to do that deludes costumer into believing that these chips are more efficient than they really are. If they would be responsible, they would decrease frequencies to accommodate more fabric instead of increasing it. If you care about your hardware you will do so yourself to extend its lifetime and power-efficiency.

    Also, efficiency difference in proper PSU is near being statistically-insignificant (like in 5% range). And, as I’ve said, they have giant redundancy (being rated on their 80-100% load + only counting 12V-line alone + having >20% overload power tolerance, etc.).

    Yes, you do need to check your PSU. Most boards have big tolerance to shitty power lines which is why shitty PSUs are able to be sold as much. All non-solid capacitors degrade with time and they are “the heart” of any PSU. And since you seem to actually haven’t measured its voltage drop in comparison to its first use tells me that you have no idea how it really is. Also, any fan loses its oil, starts to make more noise for a while and then suddenly gets stuck. That’s why all fans are rated on their work time but it can be extended almost infinitely with proper oiling if you will not wait until it gets stuck and/or burns out because of it.

    First you’ve said it’s 775W then something about 900, first about giving it out then selling… anyway, giving or selling, it would be irresponsible to do without actually knowing the extent of its wear.

  17. Κωνσταντίνος Κ.

    Any idea what a PSU is? …said that my current Thermaltake Toughpower XT 775W is 775Watt rated but can sustain 900+ watts if you draw power from it(it has quality to do so). Threadripper is factory overclocked? what? ..no it’s 2x Ryzen so it needs more power(google it to learn what threadripper is), I don’t need to replace my PSU for efficiency ..the wattage would be quite low of a difference but I prefer silent pc and if it uses less wattage(due to 80+ Titanium versus my current 80+ Bronze(which is my current psu) ..why not?)

    “haven’t measured its voltage drop in comparison to its first use tells me that you have no idea how it really is” Why the heck measure the voltage, are you stupid? I want quiter psu that’s the whole reason I’m thinking of it, said it like 3 times now, read my previous comments, my psu is 12v solid, no need to check it out it’s still under warranty(7 years warranty if my memory serves me right) …so if a company gives you quite a few years expect a quality product unless you are the exception

    ..we’re done, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about in many areas – btw did I mention I’m a pc builder by profession and own a computer shop? …well, there you go if I fail to mention that

    Please do educate yourself before arguing, else you kinda look a bit dumb(no offense), even if you reply I won’t reply to you, unless you talk properly(because so far u don’t)

  18. Witcher 3 @ 4k:

    https://i.imgur.com/wzAaqE6.jpg

    890w draw. I think you severely underestimate just heavy a draw there is on the x299 platform. There was nothing out of the ordinary running the background, just skype and TS. When I really push it, be it benchmark or otherwise, It’ll easily top 1000w.

    I do keep track of this y’know.

  19. Κωνσταντίνος Κ.

    all I see is a power meter which can be easily connected to a heater hahaha without any specs on hardware 😀 (and yes this is not your meter)

  20. Now you just blabbering uneducated nonsense and marketing drivel >_< Learn how capacitors and fans work, what "wear" (surprise, things do not last infinitely, no matter how good they were made) is, how chip's power draw is _logarithmically_ dependant on operating frequency and node size of chip fabrication process. Also, learn about voltage drop due to capacitor wear, you dum-dum.

    I've said that you may need to replace your PSU's main capacitors if they weared down too much because otherwise you have no idea how long it can last if you give or sell it to somebody. Not PSU itself. It depends on quality of main power in your home and if you have your own power stabilization in it or not. Also, your PSU may make noise just because your fan is weared down and maybe its air duct got dusted too. Just clean & oil the or replace the damn thing. Also, there isn't much point in fanless PSU if a fan-equipped PSU is quieter than your CPU & GPU & intake fans.

    But I don't give a damn why would you want to waste money on buying a new PSU if you don't even know how they may degrade from use. I'm more concerned about poor schmuck you may give or sell your PSU without knowing what exactly its condition is. At least that warranty may help them.

    It seems you're a clueless "PC builder" and even worse entrepreneur. Several of my friends work or own hardware stores or repair shops and consult with me occasionally (I dabble in OS design and ISP & enterprise network engineering) but even the most irresponsible of them don't tell drivel like that.

    Also, when you tell "unless you talk properly(because so far u don't)", try using grammar. Maybe ? I'm not even an English speaker and I'm embarrassed for you.

  21. Κωνσταντίνος Κ.

    “Learn how capacitors and fans work”

    After that I don’t have to read anything else, I’m a computer repair tech ..I do know how to solder better than you holding a fork so please, you are trolling and I won’t feed you anymore ..bye

  22. And yet you expose yourself as clueless, incompetent and insolent. Being a butcher doesn’t make you a surgeon. And, by the way, reading may make you smarter or, at least, improve your grammar skills. Try it.

  23. Κωνσταντίνος Κ.

    trying to offend someone doesn’t make you right, so if someone is ignoring you he understands that he’s wasting his time – have a nice day, try to be human and not a cockroach

  24. REALLY, “Mr. Are-you-stupid-and-a-cockroach” ? “Trying to offend someone doesn’t make you right” ?! What a revelation from a hypocrite.

    Maybe you’re forgot, but _you_ came _to me_ here with your baseless statements. I tried to educate you but it was a wasted effort, now that you got stuck in mindless hysteria. Also, regarding your irrelevant soldering skills: I doubt that someone like you could manage to reball a BGA-socketed chip. Fine electronics, like anything complex, just isn’t for you.

  25. Κωνσταντίνος Κ.

    you act like a cockroach …you tried again and again trying to insult me and you find it weird I name you cockroach? truth hurts

    it’s funny I don’t even read more than a few words from your texts, no point 😛

  26. Is 600W enough for:

    1 8700K @ 5.3 GHz and 1.44V Aircooled w/ 2 120mm Fans
    1 Titan Xp Watercooled @ 2062 MHz
    1 Optane 900P 280 GB U.2-M.2
    1 960 Pro NVMe M.2
    1 8 Port SAS RAID Controller PCIe AIC
    8 850 Pro SSDs
    64 GB DDR4 RAM

    If not, would it be enough if I moved the SSDs to an External RAID enclosure?

  27. An 8320 is not high end and generations old tech also my Old 8350 barely hit 125w at max load and it uses more than your 8320

  28. Κωνσταντίνος Κ.

    full load of 300-350w is quite much, newer systems can use half of that for the same performance so it’s a bit much 😀