900W to 1100W PSU Group Test

BFGTech 1000W Power Supply

Supplied Connectors

• One 40cm 20+4pin ATX cable with black braiding and black plug;
  
• One 45cm 4+4pin 12V cable with black braiding and black plug;
  
• Four 45cm 6pin PCI-Express cables with black braiding and blue plugs;
  
• One black braided cable two black SATA plugs: first plug 40cm, second plug 58cm;
  
• Two black braided cables with three black SATA plugs: first plug 40cm, third plug 76cm;
  
• One black braided cable with two white Molex plugs: first plug 40cm, second plug 58cm;
  
• One black braided cable with one floppy and two white Molex plugs: first connector 40cm, third 76cm;

This unit isn't modular like the majority of the PSUs we're reviewing here, so you'll have to find somewhere to put the cables you don't use. However, if you feel the need for a kilowatt of power then you'll certainly need all these cables (and a whole lot more) because there really isn't that many.

Who still regularly uses floppy plugs? Surely these should be on an adapter at least?

From the inclusion of SATA to Molex adapters you'd have guessed that this PSU was tricked out with a mountain of SATA connectors but it's not the case with just eight drives being supported. Okay, that's enough for a serious RAID array giving some 8TB+ of data, but considering a hard drive is only 30W and that's even for a 10-15k RPM disk, that means you're topping out at just ~240W on the SATA connectors.

Just four 12V rails, each supplying 20 Amps and with a combined total of 75 Amps, are able to kick out a huge 900W. The 3.3V and 5V are rated at 180W, but combined it all can only support 980W in various combinations, with the other 20W being left to the 5V standby and -12V.

The 4+4-pin connector on a single cable is a bonus, that way you don't have to choose between two cables leaving one redundant and in need of hiding. However, some server boards like the Intel V8 system require both, so in that case this PSU is just consumer only - even if it is aimed at those in need of some high end power. We do have four PCI-Express connectors but none of them are 8-pin, winning it no favours with ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT users and those who want to future proof for PCI-Express 2.0. BFGTech is an Nvidia partner and considering it'd want to tailor one into the other you'd think it would have come with the option of an adapter at the very least.


Despite looking great with the black braid we feel that there just isn't the co-ordination of connectors with the black SATA and white Molex. In no way to do they feel at all unified. The blue PCI-Express connectors make up for it in some way, and it's easier to find what connector you want in a mess of cables, but none of them are 90 degree low profile connectors, so you've got the really old school method of cable tie and heatshrink on the ends.

The actual unit is a shiny charcoal grey with two low profile 80x80x15mm fans in either end allowing a push-pull airflow through the PSU. Both fan grills come with a BFGTech branding and there's an industrial sized power button on the back so you can't miss it when grabbing blindly round the back of your case. The whole thing uses a single PCB with some large spiky circular heatsinks inside to dissipate the heat effectively, just like Tagan use in the 1100W TurboJet.

In all, the unit comes in at a respectable 2.86kg including cables, which is about average in our group test.

Testing

During testing we found the unit topped out at 42°C, which is quite warm compared to the rest of the units tested. Despite the two relatively small, thin fans it was reasonably quiet at full load. Comparably it was about the same as the Seasonic and Silver Power, with the Tagan being fractionally noisier. The OCZ and Enermax we.re quite a lot louder.