900W to 1100W PSU Group Test

Supplied Connectors

• Two 60cm 6pin black braided PCI-Express cables;
  
• Two 65cm 6pin black braided PCI-Express cables;
  
• 20+4pin 55cm black braided ATX cable
  
• 4pin 12V 60cm black braided cable;
  
• 8pin 12V 60cm black braided cable;
  
• One 'short' black braided triple Molex cable: first plug 30cm, third plug 55cm;
  
• One 'medium' black braided triple Molex cable: first plug 40cm, third plug 60cm;
  
• One 'medium' black braided triple SATA cable: first plug 40cm, third plug 60cm;
  
• One 'long' black braided triple Molex cable: first plug 50cm, third plug 70cm;
  
• One 'long' black braided triple SATA cable: first plug 50cm, third plug 70cm;

Considering this PSU is not modular, the varying lengths are a A Good Thing. However, there are very few actual cables included, with only six SATA drives supported and nine Molex plugs included. We understand the Seasonic ethos for silence, therefore you don't really want to support that many hard drives unless they're set in concrete, but 900W is plenty more than is included here.

Both 4pin and 8pin cables are included for server boards, which is good but it's yet another cable to hide when using a normal motherboard. Four PCI-Express 6pin connectors are included to support the latest multi GPU graphics card arrangements, but there's no 8pin connectors or adapters included for the PCI-Express 2.0 specification. The Molex connectors come with little bits of plastic to help you push the plug out of the socket, and the SATA connectors are at 90 degrees to the cables which makes them easier to install: both of these are typical of Seasonic's attention to detail.


The PSU features a slightly rough, matt black colour that actually works really well. It gives it a hard wearing, slightly industrial feel to it. Even though it has a single 80x80x25cm fan it only uses a single PCB, but also some massive heatsinks inside as well. Only the blue Seasonic sticker provides a change of colour on the all black rear of the PSU which sports a (normal) black fan and black fan grill too. In addition we have the usual power socket and necessary on/off switch as well. The whole thing is a tiny 2.45Kg, including cables, and you could be forgiven for not thinking it's all there compared to some of the other beasts in this group test.

Testing

At 50 percent load, the single 80mm fan is almost silent, you have to put your ear right up to it to actually check that it's on. Unfortunately this doesn't remain the case when you progress up to 100 percent. As you get there it's still tolerable but the ball bearing fan is easily as loud as the Enermax at full load. It' still quieter than the Tagan and Silver Power and obviously far quieter than the OCZ, but it's certainly not "quiet" like you'd expect from Seasonic. Considering the quantity of connectors and cables supplied though, you may never get it up to full load, so it'll remain silent it's whole life - which will be longer anyway due to the ball bearing fan.

The temperatures were pretty decent, giving a 32C air temp and just 37.5C surface temperature. The large heatsinks inside obviously helping to dissipate plenty of heat.