- Date:
- Friday , December 17, 2010
- Author:
- Paul Johnson
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Share:

Diablotek PHD650 650W Power Supply Review
There is no better mix than the Devil and technology, but that aside, how the devil does that work out for power supplies? We aim to find out and as we all know, when it comes to PSUs, the devil is in the details. Surely this PSU is straight from Hell.
Conclusions
The Diablotek PHD650 represents the first time we have seen a power supply from Diablotek, and from the OEM Diablotek has used to produce this unit. Further, Diablotek is a relative newcomer to the enthusiast DIY market and scrapping for market share in what is a cut throat industry that has not weathered the recent economic downturns so well. With all of these factors at play first impressions matter more than ever before. So, will Diablotek's PHD650 be able to wow us today? Or are we going to be looking for a different doctor when all is said and done?
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
Using the term Build Quality implies that there is some quality in this unit's construction. That would, perhaps, be a bit of a stretch of the imagination in regards to this unit. Sure the unit looks functional, if a bit ugly due to the huge sticker, from the exterior but even then there are clues that all may not be right with this unit. Not least of which is the lack of information on combined ratings on that ginormous sticker, and followed by the voltage selector switch indicating a very old design lacking APFC. When we actually open the unit up we find that our initial impressions from the exterior of the unit were not far off. The topology is a bit newer than perhaps expected as the primary is a double forward design, but the secondary is still a cheap group regulated design on a single layer PCB. Making things worse are the myriad of other problems such as no heatsink on the bridge rectifier of a "650 watts" power supply when this particular part should have one at this power level, an abysmally filled out secondary, and the use of some of the cheapest capacitors possible (LCZ primaries and BH secondaries). Things could only really be much worse if there was simply a hamster on a wheel in here, ok maybe not as at least the hamster is cute. In addition to all of this, the unit has nothing in the way of useful information regarding its electrical specifications in the "manual" or website so we have no idea the combined ratings for its outputs. Perhaps the only useful thing we have in the manual is that the warranty, which is three years long, has to be activated by registering the product in the first 30 days. However, if I may be so bold, I would suggest that since most retailers in the US take returns for up to 30 days, rather than register this product, it would probably be in users best interest to just return it now, preferably without ever using it unless you like Russian Roulette.
Load Testing
Since the Diablotek PHD650 failed ~1 minute into Test #3 (75% load), the best way to describe the load tests results as cheap, inferior, junky, lousy, shoddy, sub-par, trashy, useless, worthless, etc. (That list was stolen from the Thesaurus here so that I did not just repeat myself over and over.) The PHD650 is maybe a 300 watt power supply that had a 650 watt label slapped on it and it is just a total rip off on any terms. Through the two measly tests it did make it through the unit showed efficiency values that ranged from 79.64% to 80.81% at 120v and 79.64% to 80.00% at 100v. (Yes we know two data points don't make for an accurate range but that is all the unit gave us). At the same time the voltage regulation the unit produced over 50% of its advertised capacity was OK, but not great with the 12v rail dropping by 0.13v at 120v and 0.14v at 100v. The minor rails did better in absolute magnitude, but in relative numbers they did worse, with the 5v rail dropping the most at 0.07v. So, other than being a total failure the unit was decidedly mediocre in our normal load tests that it completed.
When we moved on to the Transient Load Test results, the PHD650 once more was a failure. In Test #1 the 12v rail had a drop of ~450mV which resulted in the unit hitting 11.41v which is just 10mV away from the ATX12v lower limit, and by itself would have been a horrible result. Then Test #2 came along and the unit out-sucked itself with the same magnitude drop but a lower starting voltage resulting in the unit hitting 11.27v. The 5v rail did better and actually didn't fail but that is really all for not as the 12v rail had already condemned this unit to another staggering failure.
The only good news I could related from testing this unit is that it didn't damage our Sun Moon SM8800 equipment! Yeah! Otherwise this unit was shockingly bad and something to steer far clear of.
DC Output Quality
After all of the horrible things about the Diablotek PHD650 the DC Output Quality was actually not a total wreck through the two tests it completed surprisingly enough. With peak values of ~15mV on the 12v rail, ~10mV on the 5v rail, and ~20mV on the 3.3v rail it was actually in specification for those two tests. Sure the 3.3v rail was at 40% of the ATX12v specification limit and likely would have grown more as the load increased, but there is no guarantee that the unit would have failed this portion of testing. However, given the build quality I doubt that it would have done well in this regard had the unit actually been capable of 650 watts.
Noise
The Diablotek PHD650 is only a 300 watt power supply with a 140mm fan. So, barring any catastrophes this unit should be quiet. But if you have read this far you know already that this whole review has been a catastrophe so it seems to be no surprise that this unit was not quiet. At 300 watts, which is likely this close to this units real maximum output, it was louder than any other 650 watts unit we have reviewed. It was downright noisy all of the time in our testing environment which is surprising on one hand, but since this unit was so poor in every other aspect really probably not that odd of an occurrence. When it comes down to it, noise is perhaps one of the last reasons to worry about this unit, but if that is what really is going to make up your mind up about this unit then stick your head in a vacuum cleaner and see how you like that noise because you are dropping that on your desktop.
Paul's Thoughts:
It has been a long time since we have seen such a useless power supply come through our review process. In fact the only unit I remember off the top of my head that comes close to matching this piece of crap was the Ultra X2 750W EE (Exploding Edition). I think one of the best things I can say about the Diablotek PHD650 is that it gives me a real legitimate reason to recommend the Cooler Master GX 650 watts over some other unit. Congratulations in that regard Diablotek, you just made another piece of goose crap look like the golden egg. Otherwise I think the rest of my thoughts on this unit are probably not printable and use a lot of four letter words.
The Bottom Line
With the PHD650, Diablotek seemingly tried to polish a turd with a turd and as such we got the expected outcome, a pile of crap. Given the horrible build quality of the unit and poor component selection of the unit that is hardly a startling result. With a current price of ~$49.99, users would be better off taking their cash and setting it on fire rather than buying this unit. There is quite literally no price point or situation where the Diablotek PHD650 should be a consideration for users as it failed almost every test possible today. Retailers and e-tailers should be ashamed to be selling such a product.

