What is the best 720-750W Power Supply?

FSP Aurum CM 750W Review

Manufacturer: FSP
UK price (as reviewed): £106.99 (inc VAT)
US price (as reviewed): $119.99 (ex Tax)

Though FSP is one of the main OEM manufacturers of power supplies, it also has a retail division, into which its Aurum CM 750W falls. This PSU wears its 80 Plus Gold certification on its sleeve, with a gold trim surrounding the 120mm intake fan grille - we'd suggest it's an acquired taste. Its £107 price tag puts it in the middle of our pack, and it comes with a five year warranty too.

Like the majority of PSUs on test, the Aurum CM 750W is a hybrid modular model. Its native cables include the thick motherboard one, a 4+4 pin ATX12V and 8-pin EPS12V CPU one and another with two 6+2 pin PCIe connectors. It's a few more cables than we like to see natively, but at least most of them will be utilised in most builds, and these cables are all sleeved back into the PSU. The modular cables include five molex, eight SATA and another two PCIe connectors, which is fairly average on all counts. These modular cables are flat and sleeved in a intriguing hard black plastic material that's quite stiff and industrial looking, it is at least fairly anti-snag though.


The PSU's four +12V rails can each supply up to 18A of current, or a combined maximum of 60A, slightly less than most of the others. The individual rail ratings of 18A is also fairly atypical and a little on the low side, so heavy overclockers looking to draw lots of power from a single rail will need to bare this in mind.

In the voltage tests you can see that the +12V rail does become a little wobbly under heavy load. In the 700W test, both +12V readings fall to lower than any other PSU on test, and though it still passes the Intel specifications, it does begin to edge towards the 11.4V limit at 11.56V, and it would be better to see readings closer to the nominal value. Readings on the +5V rail are among the best on test, with no issues to speak of on the +3.3V one either.

Its average efficiency of 90.47 percent is very good for a Gold rated power supply, as this rating means it's actually only required to exceed 90 percent efficiency at 50 percent load. This average result places it third in the group, meaning that it trumps the Platinum rated Enermax PSU. Its peak efficiency is 91.37 percent, recorded under a 400W load.

The Aurum CM 750W has ripple values that are a little higher than average, ranging from 58.8mV at 200W of load to 77.6mV under 700W, the second worst result here. Though only Cooler Master's PSU is worse here, ripple levels consistently below 80mV are still easily contained within Intel's ATX specifications. As other models show, however, there's still room for improvement.

A power consumption of 0.23W under no load is, however, a good result. Initially, the FSP looks set to be a low noise PSU too with readings of 32.3 dB(A) and 32.6 dB(A) under 100W and 300W of load respectively. However, when the load is increased to a substantial 500W, noise from the 120mm fan suddenly jumps to a loud 50.6 dB(A), so heavy gaming sessions will likely be met with a significant increase in noise output. Most of the other PSUs on test are much quieter than this.

The FSP Aurum CM 750W's price tag of £107 might not make it the dearest on test, but it's still a relatively expensive power supply. Its efficiency is impressive, but its voltage and ripple performance are a little underwhelming compared to the competition. Its set of cables and connections is adequate but not outstanding, and its high noise output is something we shouldn't be seeing at this price point. Thus, while its a competent power supply in most regards, there are better options to choose from.