FSP Epsilon 80Plus 600W
by Christoph Katzer on August 5, 2008 8:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Conclusion
As expected, the build quality of this unit is excellent. There is literally nothing to complain about. The Epsilon 80Plus 600W is a good power supply, but there's very little in the way of marketing. Unfortunately, that's typical of larger companies like FSP Group. Smaller companies like Corsair, OCZ, and be quiet! provide similar quality but have huge marketing departments. They tend to know much more about the specific markets than the actual manufacturers.
We see this lack of market knowledge when we look at the connectors of this unit. It comes with 24-pin, 4-pin ATX12V, and 4/8-pin EPS12V connectors, which is fine for the rated output. Six Molex and six SATA connectors are the minimum we would expect, and for a 600W power supply it might even be enough. The two PEG connectors are the bigger concern, as that would make this power supply under-equipped for anyone looking to run two 9800 GTX cards in SLI, or two HD 4870 cards in CrossFire. Then again, SLI/CrossFire certification for the higher-end GPUs requires a higher rating anyway. As it stands, this power supply will be fine for single graphics cards configurations, including cards like the 3870X2 and 9800GX2, or dual-cards like the 8800 GT and HD 4850 that only require a single PEG connector.
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As for the internals, we can't really blame FSP for not mixing things up, since the design is a few years old and has sold very well. It still delivers good results and can compete with the competition. The voltage regulation was great and stayed tight throughout the tests. Efficiency is also good with input voltages of 115VAC or more, though the 90VAC results are nothing special. The maximum 87% efficiency at 350W is a very competitive result.
The fan starts at a somewhat high speed of 1100RPM, but this still results in a good sound reading of just 18dB(A). Unfortunately, this scales to the maximum 27dB(A), and particularly in higher temperature environments it will hit that point at relatively low loads. That's still good compared with some other power supplies, but a 600W PSU can run at much lower noise levels as we have seen before. For a price of around 100€, users in Europe can purchase a well built unit which should run quite well. There are competitors that offer a similar feature set, quality, and performance, but frequently prices are higher. If you don't need anything more than a 600W PSU, this FSP is worth a look. If you're going to purchase an FSP-built PSU, you might as well go straight to the source.
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Amart - Wednesday, August 6, 2008 - link
-1FSP Epsilon above 500W are known to have Ripple/Noise problems, and the "spec" for maximum is much higher then anyone would want to buy.
Capacitors age, and Ripple/Noise increases over the lifetime of this product - so starting out very-low is a requirement for a quality unit. I've seen plenty of tests of $80+ units that failed to provide the quality they promised.
C'DaleRider - Wednesday, August 6, 2008 - link
Fucktard? My, my, little boy games calling names....makes you such a big boy, doesn't it?I guess despite the education proper testing sites have attempted to do in testing power supplies has eluded you. Ripple and noise is quite important...but since you care not for ever seeing the values presented, and it's not hard to get them, AT's vaunted Chroma gives them so why cannot they be presented is beyond me.
And to show the ripple/noise graphing is very simple, too. An oscilloscope is all that's needed....and if a website can afford a Chroma, it certainly can afford an oscilloscope.
Without proper presentation of ripple/noise generation at given output levels, their testing is incomplete. To be within spec is rather meaningless as 115mV of ripple on the +12V rail at full rated output is within spec, but I wouldn't buy a power supply that produced that much ripple/noise.
Come on AT, get with the program and show us complete information, or is HardOCP, Hardware Secrets, and JonnyGuru's sites the only ones that will do proper testing and leave you as an also-ran testing site.
strikeback03 - Wednesday, August 6, 2008 - link
If you don't trust them to say "Ripple Results are fine" then why would you trust a graphic? Never heard of Photoshop? Or use Labview to generate a signal to be read by an oscilloscope? If a reviewer actually wants to deceive, a picture isn't any harder.JarredWalton - Wednesday, August 6, 2008 - link
That's pretty much my thoughts as well. Christoph did include ripple tests and charts in some previous articles (http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.a...">for example, this roundup), but didn't feel like the amount of time required to generate all the charts really added anything to the results. Given that he HAS done those tests in the past, I see no reason to think that he's not conducting those tests now. That he condenses a bunch of charts that take a significant amount of effort to create into a short statement on ripple doesn't really bother me at all. Though I do have to say, at least reporting the mV ripple values as he's done in the past would be good.Amart - Thursday, August 7, 2008 - link
He does NOT condense. If he wanted to condense he would give the average number he's getting from the calculation.Simply saying that something is "within spec" is unacceptable in a professional review, for reasons outlined in the above replies.
He must show the numbers, whether in a graph or simply writing them down. It won't take more space or time - if he's actually doing the testing.
JarredWalton - Thursday, August 7, 2008 - link
Usually Christoph has listed the ripple values. I'm not sure why he didn't put them in this article. Compare to the last article, where he mentions 8mV or whatever. I'll flog him and make sure we get some numbers for future PSUs. :)Amart - Friday, August 8, 2008 - link
Why not for this one? This isn't paper print, you can edit.Both methodology and results for such key testing should be posted or linked within the article - just like on other sites.
HOOfan 1 - Thursday, August 7, 2008 - link
I personally would rather see specific values for ripple rather than oscilloscope shots. By the same measure, I would rather see specific values for voltage regulation, rather than line graph. I would rather see specific AC input versus DC output numbers instead of a line graph for efficiency. All of these should be simple and quick to whip up into a chart. As for the FSP Epsilon, for most in North America where the superior Corsair CWT and Seasonic designs can be had for the same price or even less money, I say going with the superior designs of CWT and Seasonic is a no brainer. Same for the new BFG LS line that has popped up...they need to drop the price by about $15-$20 before they can even hope to compete with the value that Corsair is putting out there.larson0699 - Wednesday, August 6, 2008 - link
I'll take their word for it....especially having already concluded that this is a good unit but still nothing on Seasonic's S12II/M12II line. Their testing is sufficient to validate that.
You can say what you want about AT, but it's their game and I think they're damn good at it, and ooh look at the pretty colors *drool*. You may find yourself more comfortable reading , Hot, Tom's, I don't care, but that's _your_ preference and one I can respect, at least moreso than "boo fuckity hoo your testing is incomplete OMGWTFBBQ". I'll tell you what'll really get results: Buy the unit, suppress the mouth.
I said good day.