Date:
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Author:
Paul Johnson
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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Kingwin LZ-1000 1000W Power Supply Review

No matter how you look at it, 1 kilowatt, or 1000 watts, it is a lot of power that most computer enthusiasts will never need. Rest assured though, some of us do need all that power and we are generally very picky about that much power gets delivered to our enthusiast computer builds. Kingwin's LZ-1000 is up to that job?

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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 Kingwin LZ-1000 at 45C. This makes Test #1 equal to 271W by loading the 12v rail to 20a, 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 see all the DC output voltages starting off above nominal. The efficiency is starting off well at 82.12% and the exhaust temperature is coming in at 48C.

Test #2 is equal to approximately 50% of the rated capacity of the Kingwin LZ-1000 at 45C. This makes Test #2 equal to 508W by loading the 12v rail to 39a, the 5v rail to 3a, the 3.3v rail to 2a, the +5vsb to 2a, and the -12v to 0.5a. Test #2 sees very minimal changes with there being only slight across the board drops in the DC output voltages that peak at 0.05v on the 12v rail. The efficiency has moved up to 84.39% which is good to see. There is a 4C rise in exhaust temperature as well in this test.

Test #3 is equal to approximately 75% of the rated capacity of the Kingwin LZ-1000 at 45C. This makes Test #3 equal to 754W by loading the 12v rail to 52a, the 5v rail to 6a, the 3.3v rail to 4a, the +5vsb to 2a, and the -12v to 0.5a. Test #3 sees changes that are very similar to Test #2 with the largest change once more being 0.05v on the 12v rails. The efficiency is off of Test #2's high as it hits 83.22% with a 56C exhaust temperature.

Test #4 is equal to approximately 100% of the rated capacity of the Kingwin LZ-1000 at 45C. This makes Test #4 equal to 999W by loading the 12v rail to 74a, the 5v rail to 0.5a, the 3.3v rail to 0.5a, the +5vsb to 2a, and the -12v to 0.5a. In Test #4 we see the 5v rail rebound slightly while the 12v rails post their largest Test to Test drop peaking at 0.07v. The efficiency is coming in at 81.95% with an exhaust temperature of 62C, a 6C rise over Test #3.

120v Load Testing Summary

The 120v load testing results for the Kingwin LZ-1000 are very good overall. The voltage regulation was particularly good on the minor rails as they barely varied at all during testing. The 12v rails showed a bit greater variance, but that change was just 0.17v at peak which is very good. At the same time the unit posted efficiency values that ranged from 81.95% to 84.39% which puts it just below 80Plus Bronze levels if 80Plus used our test parameters (which they do not). Given that the unit was so close to 80Plus's numbers at our elevated temperature of 45C I gave the unit a quick check at the 80Plus loads at room temperature and it did post just barely 80Plus Bronze numbers. Overall, these are very good results from this unit so let’s move on and see how it does at 100v.