The Best 650 watt PSUs - Price aside

kindasmart

[H]ard|Gawd
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What are the best 650 watt power supplies regardless of price?

AFAIK 650 watts is more than enough for MOST single O/C processor and single video card rigs, so that is what I intend to buy. I just want "the best" not simply the "best bang for the buck."

My order of importance of features: 1) reliability, 2) clean power output, 3) fan quality, 4) warranty, 5) modular (full>semi), 6) heat output, 7) fan noise, 8) All black cables, 9) exterior cosmetics and 10) price.

Thanks in advance.
 
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Seasonic SS-660XP Okay, it's 660W not 650W but what's 10W between friends?

Jonny Guru review All 10s except for value, but you said price be damned. Only the ATX cable is sleeved, but he does say "But, from an aesthetics point of view, this just looks so darn good I'm not sure I care."
 
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If you dont choose the one above then I would use either a XFX, Seasonic, or Corsiar.

You will probably have to go up to the 750W range to get one that is fully modular but those are the only 3 I would put into a build.
 
Seasonic SS-660XP Okay, it's 660W not 650W but what's 10W between friends?


Thanks for the recommendation.

After re-reading my list of priorities I realized "all sleeved cables" wasn't necessary as all decent PSUs now-a-days come with nice sleeves or flat ribbons. All black would be nice though if I can find a windowed case I like.
 
Is the Seasonic listed above truly the best of the best (regardless of cost) at the 650w level? All opinions/comments welcome. Thanks.
 
Skip the Corsair's. The fan ramps up too aggressively and the tone isn't all that great.
 
Jonny Guru seems to think its about the best there is. 10's in performance, functionality and build quality about sums it up for me and if its not THE best then its definitely in the top .0001% of the best.
 
The Seasonic X650 is currently $90 at newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151088
The JonnyGuru review here

That's hard to beat for all your requirements. And you can NOT beat that price anywhere at the moment.

Yeah, I took advantage of that deal last week! Looks like they are replacing their entire top-end lineup, and need to liquidate the (overpriced) old stock.

PSU is completely silent, and the fully-modular connectors made it easy to install.
 
Super Flower Golden King Platinum 650W. That's what I'd get if price was not a problem.
 
Yeah, I took advantage of that deal last week! Looks like they are replacing their entire top-end lineup, and need to liquidate the (overpriced) old stock.

PSU is completely silent, and the fully-modular connectors made it easy to install.

They have been shipping the new line since before thanksgiving. Did yours come with a fan mode switch and flat cables?

Here is the review of the new X-650 KM3 model:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Seasonic-X-Series-KM3-650-W-Power-Supply-Review/1690
 
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Super Flower Golden King Platinum 650W. That's what I'd get if price was not a problem.

Thanks for the tip. I'll need to check out some test reports on it.

I have been really happy with CORSAIR TX Series CMPSU-650TX 650W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005

The Corsair TX series PSU are good, but not in the "I'm spending $70 more that I have to for no good reason" category. And that is what I want. LOL.

The Seasonic X650 is currently $90 at newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151088
The JonnyGuru review here

That's hard to beat for all your requirements. And you can NOT beat that price anywhere at the moment.

Yeah that is just a crazy good price for a crazy good supply. Definitely the best bang-for-the-buck PSU out there now. By far.

Thanks for all the tips. Keep them coming.
 
Enermax by far, they win most reviews but cost a fortune. Its all I will buy and when you hold a 550watt Enermax in one hand and a name brand 750 watt in the other and they weigh the same it says something about what goes into their products. I was shocked I was able to push a 450Watt Enermax to run a Phenom II x4, 2 AMD 5770's in crossfire with 3 Hard drives, 1 Raptor drive and it all ran without a single hiccup for over a year before I upgraded the power supply with a bigger enermax when I upgraded the video cards.
The system was also my main media center setup so it ran 24 x 7 and doubles as my DVR with a quad Ceton tuner.
Trust me those power supplies are ROCK SOLID
 
Enermax seems to have fallen off the radar a bit in recent years though. While I do agree with you that they do make good PSU's there are better options out there. Ten years ago a PSU's weight meant alot nowadays with Gold and Platinum rated PSU's being so efficient they don't need half the heatsinks (weight) that they needed 10 years ago for a similar wattage power supply. The weight of a power supply doesn't mean as much now as it did back ten years or so ago.
 
x650 Seasonic is nice and quiet. i unfortunately had to replace it with the infamous tr2 rx 750w thermaltake and the coil whine is quite annoying :(
 
Although I've only had it running for a few days now, the Seasonic 660XP Platinum is probably the best PSU I've owned, but mainly for superficial reasoning (the all black cables, and the hybrid switch is a nice extra perk). I also have a X650 and X660 Gold and there's very little if any difference between the 3 units in terms of quietness and performance so far in my "real world" usage.
 
Just posted the following supply as a follow-up in an older thread I was in...heh. Another 650W option besides the Seasonic-made ones mentioned here (which are always a good choice): the Antec EA-650 Green ($90 not on sale).

Made by the old-school manufacturer Delta, who have a long history...which continues today...of making top quality products. They don't make a lot for the consumer market these days, but what they do make are top notch.

Its not modular (at all), though.

If willing to wait a bit, the new True Power Gold 650 is also made by Delta and will be fully modular.
 
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Why agonize between the X-650 Gold and the SS-660XP Platinum.

Just buy them both!!! It's what I eventually did.

The X-650 was such a killer deal for only $90 at Newegg (free shipping/no tax) that I simply could not pass it up. Total impulse buy. Then I got to thinking that I really wanted the Platinum so I ordered it as well. It's been too long since I bought any goodies so I went nuts. LOL.

I plan to use the X-650 in my brother's rig and use the Platinum for myself in my eventual dream rig.

Newegg is out of stock on the X-650 now so I hope everybody who was thinking about that deal grabbed one.

----------

Something I totally didn't think about before I purchased my PSUs was SATA and Molex cable length and connector count per cable. The Seasonics come with 5 Molex and 10 SATA connectors, but they are only on 2 (Molex) and 3 (SATA) cables respectively. 2 + 3 for Molex and 4 + 4 + 2 for SATA.

If you have a tower case and have fans on top/side/bottom/front of your case you are potentially going to run into issues. You might not have enough cables for all of your fans plus computer components or they might not be long enough to run behind the motherboard tray or side panel. Splitters and Extensions will possibly be needed.

This potential problem is compounded by the fact that Seasonic shows replacement cables on it's site but doesn't sell them, no links either. Nothing much on Google either. Newegg doesn't seem to carry any replacement cables either? Un-sleeved and multi-color cable extensions and splitters would really look like crap when compared to the all-black Seasonic cables. I'm sure one of the boutique-esqe retailers like FrozenCPU have all black splitters and extension cables but those will be expensive (+shipping costs).

This is [H]ard|OCP only real weakness (not a large weakness btw) in their PSU reviews. The connector count chart is good, but no details on number of actual cables and the number of connectors per cable.
 
Get a Seasonic (as mentioned), or the corsair (which I believe is also manufactured by seasonic - correct me if im wrong). You may also want to check out PC Power & Cooling, they make some nice stuff.
 
Get a Seasonic (as mentioned), or the corsair (which I believe is also manufactured by seasonic - correct me if im wrong). You may also want to check out PC Power & Cooling, they make some nice stuff.
Some of corsair's psus are made by seasonic... The HX650, ax650, ax750 and ax850. The ax*60 seem to be made by flextronics. their high wattage ax1200 is also made by flextronics.
 
Question: Which is the better PSU now? X-650 Gold or the SS-660XP Platinum?
Answer: Since the price for the X-650 went up $60, the Platinum, which is now the same price as the X-650 on Newegg, is the better buy. The Platinum is actually $20 cheaper if you add in the rebate.
 
That's a dumb price to pay now for the X-650. The Corsair AX-750 is now $136 on Amazon, and is probably about the same price on newegg after the $10 gift card and 15% off promo code.

The prices got weird because Seasonic X- and Corsair AX- PSUs are dwindling or gone now. But no need to panic-buy; the Seasonic G-550 ($86 on newegg) reviewed very well here compared to the X-560.
 
That's nice. But I don't understand what will be their new top end lineup? :confused:

Seasonic Platinum line. PLATINUM-1000, PLATINUM-860, SS-760XP, SS-660XP, SS-520FL, SS-460FL, SS-400FL. FL = fanless.
 
"When you buy a Seasonic PLATINUM-660 you are simply getting exactly what you paid for; quite possibly the best PSU we have ever reviewed." -HardOCP review of the Seasonic SS-660XP

Remember when voltage regulation of 0.10v was considered spectacular? This one keeps it down to 0.01v.
 
What are the best 650 watt power supplies regardless of price?

AFAIK 650 watts is more than enough for MOST single O/C processor and single video card rigs, so that is what I intend to buy. I just want "the best" not simply the "best bang for the buck."

My order of importance of features: 1) reliability, 2) clean power output, 3) fan quality, 4) warranty, 5) modular (full>semi), 6) heat output, 7) fan noise, 8) All black cables, 9) exterior cosmetics and 10) price.

Thanks in advance.

CORSAIR HX650 gold rated
ANY SEASONIC POWER SUPPLY

ANY POWER SUPPLY USING SEASONIC HARDWARE,
 
Greetings Hard denizens! Just wanted to put a few electrons to the forum regarding the SS-660XP I purchased in August 2013 based largely on this review.

It died. Suddenly and without fanfare. Just *click* and my computer was dark and silent.

More information...I originally put this in my 2500K build paired with a 760 GPU and 4 spinning HDDs, 3x140mm case fans (filtered positive pressure), and the occasional outboard USB HDD. Usually up from Friday after noon to Sunday evening, then for 4 hours each day when I get home from work. In October 2016 I moved it to my new 6700K OC build (4.6Ghz @ 1.32 v) on an Asus Sabertooth Mark 1, 2x 1TB SSD, 3 TB HDD, 4 TB HDD, USB HDD on occasion and a 970 SSC GPU. (Delidded the 6700K and using a Reeven Justice my observed Handbrake max temps at 78 degrees ambient are 69-71 degrees C)

This week on 7/3 I was checking Houston traffic (I don't know what for, it's usually just plain f*cked up in any case) and the system went down. No pops, no smoke no flashes...just...dead. No LED stdby lights on the motherboard. I swapped out the Seasonic with another PSU and observed the stby LEDs were working; I reconnected everything and the system powered up, but I found the BIOS had been smacked upside the head and thought it was 2009.

Happily (so far), the Seasonic PSU carries a 7 year warranty so I got an RMA number and sent it off to California where it should arrive today.

I'll let you know what happens next.
 
Irony,


I have some ironic experiences too...
A few years back, on two separate occasions, I bought two of the the highest rated PSUs on hardforum from my direct creation of a similar thread and the subsequent advice given.

Both died within about a year of use. One has died twice since too. (It had a seven year warranty so I've been getting RMAs.). Neither, PSU was overloaded at all.

Meanwhile a lowly Ultra power supply (bundled in a cheap Tiger Direct barebones components case deal) I had from the AMD 3000 64 days (that everybody here said would catch fire and burn my house down) lasted over 10 years --- and that before I sold the PC on craigslist. As far as I know, it's probably still working today.

Since then, I don't give as much heed to the "best of the best" forum recommendations. It's all anecdotal evidence anyway from "Joe" and "Larry" in the stands. Johnny Guru does good reviews, sure, but he isn't going to guarantee your personal power supply works. Just get a mainstream one with a long warranty and decent collective reviews at a good price and you'll likely be fine. If you want longer reliability for everything buy a smart APC active battery backup. I've had more success with those over the years than pedigree power supply's.

(Yes, I realize my experiences are anecdotal too.)
 
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Irony,
(Yes, I realize my experiences are anecdotal too.)

Agreed, your experiences are also personal ones (as are mine)

My personal experience is that I was running ~210 Seasonic PSU's at 80 per cent load for a year and exactly 8 died... 6 from the same cabling flaw that I had to work around on the others (Now this wasn't really a flaw, the flaw was in how I was using them, but they honored the warranty) and of those over 200 4 were simply DOA for no reason I could discern. In comparison, I had 132 of 750 video cards fail (mostly powercolor), ~20 system boards, 2 CPU's and a dozen ish sticks of RAM. I also had a huge failure rate on USB sticks until I got the network boot in place. I also replaced the motors on the furnace blowers twice until I smartened up and got multistage systems with bearings that could be externally lubricated.

I still use 25 of those original PSU's and they are now ~five years old and still cranking away at 80 per cent though in the past year I have had two of them kick the bucket and most have fan noise now if the fans still work. I find that the actual plug wire they supply is substandard for 80 per cent continual draw and I replaced them all with the cables supplied for Dell file servers which are lower gauge and remain flexible and pliable for much longer. All running on 240V.

Good PSU's should be the least of your worries.

But of course anything can fail at any time for any reason.
 
This is good information! One question: should I put the returned & repaired Seasonic back into the system or keep the one I have in there?
 
I have the Seasonic Plat 660 that I had Microcenter price match for around $139 I think. At the time I read nothing but amazing glowing reviews. This was only 6 or so weeks ago.

I heard the Titanium was not worth the huge additional cost because the Plat and Titanium are nearly identical in specifications.
 
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