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- Date:
- Monday , September 22, 2008
- Author:
- Paul Johnson
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
FSP Everest 700w Power Supply
FSP is back at HardOCP’s PSU testing facility this time with a much more mainstream 700 watt computer power supply. Will this one have you dropping your Antec’s, BFG’s, Corsair’s, OCZ’s, and TT’s? We put the screws to it in what many consider the best PSU testing program on the Web.
Overview
The first thing we are going to look at with the FSP Everest 700w power supply is its packaging, accessories, and documentation. While none of these items is a real make or break item for a power supply the packaging quite often contains a lot of information about the product we are purchasing. The inclusion of an owner’s manual that provides actual information about our product is also of great help. Accessories are almost unnecessary with a power supply as the unit is self contained, unless it is modular, but there cases where a manufacturer can include useful accessories to make installation, routing and use more efficient.
The packaging of the Everest 700w, like the 1010w, certainly carries on the mountain theme with its color scheme and background. Imposed upon this somewhat serene image we have a few marketing points, a True Total Power sticker, a SLI label, diagram of the modular cables, power label, and some additional basic details about the unit including efficiency of up to 85%. Among the items listed in the marketing points is something called True Total Power which once more sounds promising, though last time didn’t seem to fit in our test environment. Moving on, the SLI certification for this unit is currently listed as being for 8800Ultra SLI while a quick check of the 80Plus website results in us finding a large number of 700w units from FSP including the Everest 700w 80Plus model. Lastly, of interest, like with the last FSP Everest unit we reviewed nowhere on the packaging is there an indication of the unit’s warranty length. However, after once more searching the wide selection of FSP websites (1,2,3,4) I was able to locate this PDF that lists the warranty for the Everest 700w at 5 years. While 5 years is a good length of time not listing the warranty and terms in the manual or on the new website that is LISTED in the manual, www.fsplifestyle.com, (at the time of writing) is certainly not a good approach.
The FSP Everest 700w paper specifications are interesting. If we are to believe the way the power label is written this unit is supposed to be capable of 675w on the 12v rails alone which is a healthy ~96% of the unit’s total DC output capacity. However, this is not the case since the FSP Everest 700w is a group regulated design and has a minimum load requirement for the 5v and 3.3v rails which must be taken into account. This information is not present on the label but is in the manual, so users looking for a power supply that can be a pure 12v output should look elsewhere. Beyond that, the FSP Everest has four 12v rails rated at 18A according to the label. However, once more when we look in the manual we find an interesting discrepancy as the unit is labeled as having the OCP set at 30A per rail for the 12v rails. Why this discrepancy exists is unknown but if we assume the 18A figure is the valid on then each 12v rail has 216w available to it. This 216w individual rail limit includes 12v4 which has an 8-pin PCI-Express connector (rated for a peak capacity of 150w) and a 6-pin PCI-Express connector (rated for a peak capacity of 75w) for a combined theoretical peak draw of 225w. Additionally, the unit has the EPS connector on its own 12v rail while the P4/AUX connector shares 12v2 with the other 6 pin PCI-Express connector. Lastly, we see that the Everest 700w comes with six Molex and six SATA connectors on 12v3 along with the motherboard connector for all of your peripheral needs.
Once we open the packaging for the FSP Everest 700w we find the power supply itself, power cord, manual, modular connectors, and the mounting screws. The overall allotment of items is fairly standard. The user manual comes in at 25 pages thanks to the six languages included. The information contained in the manual is very basic with just some installation instructions, the power tables for the 500-700w model Everest 80Plus, OCP/OVP settings, a few troubleshooting steps, and a website address. As stated earlier this website unfortunately at the time of writing does not have the warranty information on it making its inclusion less than helpful in that regard. Overall, the information contained in the manual is of some help but it not as complete as it could be and the exclusion of the warranty information once more is certainly not helpful.