![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , December 10, 2009
- Author:
- Paul Johnson
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
XFX Black Edition 850W Power Supply Review
XFX jumps into the PSU market at the 850 watt mark which has proven to be the toughest watermark for many manufacturers when it comes to building a truly outstanding power supply. We have seen many fail here. Can XFX pull it off and continue to diversify its product lines while keeping the trust of the enthusiast?
Conclusions
The XFX Black Edition 850W is the first power supply branded by XFX and as the old saying goes you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Sometime ago now another unknown company in the field of power supplies decided to give it a go and partnered with Seasonic to launch what became probably one of the most popular power supplies of its class. Since then Corsair has gone on to launch a plethora of power supplies and take a significant market share for themselves in the power supply realm. Today though, we find that XFX has decided to step into the ring as well and in doing so has partnered themselves with none other than Seasonic. This begs the question, are we seeing the rise of another premium power supply brand in the form of XFX? Or is this product launch missing that something extra needed to enter the cut throat power supply market?
HardOCP’s testing methodology is intended to very much push power supplies to their advertised wattage rating in temperatures that will represent some of the hottest computer enthusiast cases. So if a unit passes all our testing it is definitely not something to take lightly. In fact we expect more power supplies to fail our testing than make it through unscathed.
Build Quality
The overall build quality of the XFX Black Edition 850W is almost identical to the Seasonic M12D-850 which it is based on. That would make this unit a very well built piece of enthusiast kit, but it does sport a few differences. The most obvious difference is the cosmetic choices made by XFX which certainly provide a unique (for mass produced) power supply. The fit and finish on this unique design is still high quality. The interior of the Black Edition 850W continues this very good build quality for the most part, but does house the other big difference from the M12D-850. The M12D-850 utilized a high quality Sanyo Denki fan for its cooling, but for whatever reason (Possibly cost, supply, and maybe because Sanyo Denki doesn't make a fan in the color that XFX wanted.) the Black Edition is sporting an ADDA fan. The remaining components are top notch and all of the capacitors are provided by Nippon Chemi-con. This is coupled with very good integration and very clean soldering once more. All in all, this makes for a fine looking, well built unit that is backed by a 5 year warranty. For a first impression, this unit does stand out already and in a good way.
Load Testing
The Load Testing results for the XFX Black Edition 850W were excellent for the most part and for the most part just like those posted by the M12D-850. The voltage regulation exhibited by this unit was excellent as the 12v rail dropped just 0.10v over its capacity. Similarly, the minor rails dropped by just 0.05v and posted slight recoveries in Test #4. The unit’s efficiency was also very good like that of the M12D-850 and it ranged from 84.61% to 87.49% at 120v and 83.60% to 86.21% at 100v. This falls just short of 80Plus Silver at our elevated temperature of 45C, but that is nothing to sneeze at. One other item of note was the exhaust temperatures with the Black Edition 850W are much higher (peaking at 66C at 120v and 70C at 100v) than what we saw with the M12D-850. This could be due to the different fan as the two units share almost everything else in common.
The Transient Load Testing results for the XFX Black Edition 850W are a pass. However, the 5v drop easily stayed in specification but the "bounce" after the load switched off was almost out of specification due to the unit’s high 5v set point. Other than that, we find that the ~260mV drop on the 12 rail when loaded and the ~100mV drop on the 5v rail when loaded place this unit right in the middle of M12D based units we have seen to date. The M12D-850 easily beat this unit out, but the PC Power and Cooling Silencer 910 severely trailed it. As such, this unit passes and averages this platform which is good enough today for a first foray into the world of power supplies.
DC Output Quality
The DC Output Quality of the XFX Black Edition 850W so mopped up the competition that all I can say is "ShamWow!" Previously, the M12D-850 had peak 12v trace amplitudes of ~35mV but the single 12v rail of the XFX peaked at just ~20mV or 1/6 of the ATX12v specification limit. Continuing this trend of not doing much of anything, the minor rails posted peak trace amplitudes of less than 10mV during testing. These results trounce those posted by some of the best 850W units on the market such as the M12D-850, Antec Signature 850, and Corsair HX850W. That makes this a simply outstanding result for the Black Edition 850W and probably makes this the unit’s best feature which is going to be hard to top on future projects.
Noise
The XFX Black Edition 850W is based upon the Seasonic M12D-850 which was a very quiet unit for its DC output capacity. That unit achieved its quiet noise profile by using a large fan, excellent efficiency, and a good fan controller. As such, we expected the XFX Black Edition 850W to do much the same. However, the XFX Black Edition 850W uses a different fan than was found on the M12D-850 and it was in the end not nearly as quiet while producing higher exhaust temperatures. Certainly though, while audible starting at 75% load this unit was never as loud as the PC Power and Cooling Silencer 910 that was built on this platform so don't mistake this noise output for something deafening. Users that actually are pushing this unit to 75% will likely be running SLI or some other setup with louder fans than this and at low loads the unit is still very quiet. It is however, just a bit disappointing to see this unit slip behind the M12D-850 in this regard.
Paul's Thoughts:
The XFX Black Edition 850W is very good first product offering and would be even more outstanding only if we had not seen the M12D-850 before it. The Black Edition does retain most of the excellent features found on the M12D-850, and even improves upon the DC Output Quality which is no small feat given the already excellent results posted by that unit. However, the seemingly small change of fans may have had a bit of an effect on this unit as the Black Edition was not only louder than the M12D-850 it also ran much hotter. In the end the tradeoff of better DC Output Quality is certainly going to be worth some extra audio noise, but it would have been sweet if we could have maintained that noise profile and gotten the better DC Output Quality. Then this unit would have been an even bigger pain for XFX to top the next go around. The last item I want to touch on is the look. The neon green and black color scheme is certainly a bit different compared to what we have seen before and is going to be attractive to some people. Personally, I am not a huge fan. A really nice paint job like the PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 had or well finished products with something unique like the coax style connectors of most Kingwin units look better to me. However, this is subjective and honestly if users were going to be doing a sci-fi mod this unit is almost drop in ready with no real working being necessary. Hopefully someone will produce a Borg cube mod with this in it. :)
The Bottom Line
The XFX Black Edition 850W power supply is an excellent unit that makes for an excellent freshman offering. The Black Edition maintains the excellent voltage regulation and efficiency of the M12D-850 it is based on and then one ups it in the DC Output Quality department. The only real downside to this unit is in order to get this better DC Output Quality, users are going to have to accept a bit more noise in the process. As such, if you liked the M12D-850 and thought it just didn't have enough panache then the XFX Black Edition 850W is the power supply for you. We also know that many of our readers are smitten with XFX’ support here in North America, so that may be another big plus in buying a PSU from XFX.
At $185 or here for $185 with Free Shipping you get M12D-850 performance or better and a power supply that looks stand out everywhere except for an alien invasion. Kudos to XFX for doing a great job!
UPDATE: You can now buy this XFX Black Edition 850 Watt PSU at Newegg for $149 with $6 shipping.
