Date:
Tuesday , July 28, 2009
Author:
Paul Johnson
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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BFG EX-1000 1000 Watt Power Supply

BFG Tech has done a very good job at commanding respect in the computer power supply market in the last year. It has stepped up its game and along with that it is now entering the tremendously demanding 1 kilowatt PSU market. 1000 watts of power is not easy to deliver while doing a good job of it.

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Load Testing

For those of you that are curious as to some of the reasoning and equipment behind our PSU testing program here at HardOCP, we have put together a living document that shares a lot of the behind the scenes of the program. The testing we are conducting today is exactly as described in that document and will begin with a range of loads tested at 120v input including our torture test and then move on to the same set of tests at 100v input but without the torture test.

120v Load Testing Results

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Test #1 is equal to approximately 25% of the rated capacity of the BFG EX-1000 at 45c. This makes Test #1 equal to 256W by loading the 12v rail to 19a, the 5v rail to 2a, the 3.3v rail to 1a, the +5vsb to 2a, and the -12v to 0.5a. The results of Test #1 are all within specification for the DC output voltages. The unit’s efficiency is coming in at a very high 87.07% which is excellent for this low of a load level.

Test #2 is equal to approximately 50% of the rated capacity of the BFG EX-1000 at 45c. This makes Test #2 equal to 495W by loading the 12v rail to 38a, the 5v rail to 4a, the 3.3v rail to 2a, the +5vsb to 2a, and the -12v to 0.5a. Test #2 sees all the positive DC output voltages move down with the 12v rail leading the way with a peak change of 0.08v. The unit’s efficiency has remained rather flat to only slightly up as it comes in at 87.46%. The exhaust temperature has moved up considerably however, as it is now coming in at 57c.

Test #3 is equal to approximately 75% of the rated capacity of the BFG EX-1000 at 45c. This makes Test #3 equal to 760W by loading the 12v rail to 60a, the 5v rail to 5a, the 3.3v rail to 3a, the +5vsb to 2a, and the -12v to 0.5a. Test #3 sees another across the board drop in the DC output voltages that is lead by the 12v rails. In this set of changes the 12v rails show a peak change of 0.10v. The efficiency has moved down as well with the new value being 84.92% which is still very good. The exhaust temperature however, is getting worrying at 67c.

Test #4 is equal to approximately 100% of the rated capacity of the BFG EX-1000 at 45c. This makes Test #4 equal to 978W by loading the 12v rail to 80a, the 5v rail to 4a, the 3.3v rail to 1a, the +5vsb to 2a, and the -12v to 0.5a. In the final regular test we see another peak change of 0.10v on the 12v rails and smaller changes on the minor rails. The efficiency has continued to move off of Test #2's high point as it comes in at 81.57%. The exhaust temperature has sky rocketed and is now hitting 80c!

120v Load Testing Summary

Overall the BFG EX-1000 passed the 120v load testing portion of our review today. The passing by this unit however, did give us a few things to think about. First, the 12v voltage regulation was in specification, but a bit looser than we saw with the ES-800 as 12v3 dropped by a total of 0.27v. The minor rails also dropped some over their much narrower load range but this change was not as significant as the 12v change. The next item of interest was the unit’s efficiency which was VERY GOOD at 25% load as it was 87.07%. At full load this dropped off to 81.57% which is certainly not that great but this is not an artifact or a failure per se. This is the design of this unit as it emphasizes higher efficiency at lower load levels because users will spend a far greater amount of time at or below 25% load than they will at greater than 75% load. This also makes the unit do BETTER than the 80-85% efficiency we were promised by BFG. What is really interesting here are the extreme exhaust temperatures we see that peak at 80c in Test #4. The fan was fully functional in this unit so the exact reasoning for this high of an exhaust temperature is somewhat unknown as the efficiency value of 81.57% at full load is not that low. Moving on, let’s see how the unit does now at 100v AC input.