XFX 1000W Pro Series 80 Plus Platinum
by Martin Kaffei on March 1, 2012 1:38 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Seasonic
- PSUs
- XFX
- 80 Plus Platinum
Internal Design and Components
Seasonic builds this particular power supply and uses the full bridge with a resonant circuit behind. The full bridge is composed of two half bridges (one high-side and one low-side MOSFET each) which work alternately so the transformer can be driven into a balanced state. This full bridge allows them to reduce the size of the main transformer and theoretically doubles the possible output power of the half bridge converter. This only applies when identical MOSFETs are used and if all other components are chosen correctly as well. As you can see the heatsinks on the secondary side are very thin, but the MOSFETs have a low power dissipation and get cooled by the conduction path and the fan as well. Those blue capacitors beside the heatsinks are made by Nippon Chemi-Con, as are all the others in this PSU.
The EMI filtering consists of a complete mains filter with two additional X capacitors, four Y capacitors, one more common mode choke, and one differential mode choke. Moreover inrush current gets limited by a thermistor, and a MOV as passive OVP is included as well. Both rectifier bridges get their own heatsink for cooling. In the power factor pre-regulator we find three large main caps and a serperate IC for PFC control on a single sided PCB. On the fifth picture in our gallery, two MOSFETs in a large TO-247 case can be seen. Their gate connectors are equipped with a ferrite bead. Besides this the PFC diode on the left has nearly no reverse recovery time.
The resonant circuit in the middle shows one important change. Two conductions of the IC CM6901 (on a small PCB) lead to a small inductor, which is located between the resonant capacitor, the resonant coil, and the small "auxiliary coil" to relieve the main transformer. With this the current can be measured in the resonant circuit to improve regulation. A second winding is connected to the main PCB and the magnetic flux in the core passes through the regulation winding.
The buck converters for +3.3V and +5V are located on the modular PCB. With the APW7159 controller XFX is able to switch at a high frequency. With this the size of passive components can be reduced again. +12V has many short transitions to the modular board, which means resistance is somewhat lower; this helps to increase efficiency a little. The protecion IC can be found on another seperate PCB on the left. As expected XFX has a native dual output design for +12V. Soldering quality is outstanding, as is usually the case with Seasonic built PSUs. We couldn't find any dry soldered joints, though a few parts did get a bit too much solder.
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mariush - Thursday, March 1, 2012 - link
Don't you have auto correct in your text editor?but we need to find out how good this model acutally is.
acutally -> actually
page 2... last paragraph... fan has fluid dynamic), then you use FD bearing at the end, without mentioning the abbreviation before
Martin Kaffei - Friday, March 2, 2012 - link
I'm afraid not!But we've corrected all mistakes now. Thanks a lot.
MySchizoBuddy - Friday, March 2, 2012 - link
Can you do a review of the "Be Quiet" series of PSU. They are supposed to be super silent in operation. http://www.be-quiet.net/be-quiet.net/index.php?Sto...ExarKun333 - Friday, March 2, 2012 - link
Not usually one to care about how an internal component looks, but this PSU is god-awful ugly. I would get the Seasonic in a heartbeat if these were side-by-side every time.kenyee - Friday, March 2, 2012 - link
1000W systems would be hot, loud, and power hungry :-PGet me a 600-700W power supply w/ platinum specs and I'll be happy to stuff it in a low power build ;-)
B3an - Saturday, March 3, 2012 - link
I have the XFX Pro 1250W Black Edition, which is very similar to this PSU and looks the same. All i have to say is that it's an excellent PSU, i've nothing bad to say about it at all.It's powering a VERY high end socket 2011 system with multiple GPU's, SSD's + HDD's, water cooling, 32GB RAM, and a highly overclocked i7 (4.9GHz) and the PSU remains quiet. Looks sexy too, even the cables are nice and all black.
Finally - Saturday, March 3, 2012 - link
Cool story, bro.aranyagag - Tuesday, March 6, 2012 - link
and a serperate IC for PFC control on a single sided PCB.SERPERATE
mikbe - Sunday, May 27, 2012 - link
As you said this PSU is made by Seasonic and they reuse their own design so this is almost exactly the same as the Seasonic eponymous version with the differences being the Seasonic has the better San Ace fan, it doesn't look like it was made by the Dharma Initiative, it has a connection from the main PSU board to the back that the XFX doesn't have (no idea what it's for), and the Seasonic is $25 more than this XFX version. Looking at the parts I think the XFX may also use some less expensive components that are spec'd near the same tolerances to shave a few dollars off production costs.If you want to save $25 (a good 10% of the cost) and don't mind the inferior, but still OK, fan and possibly some inferior components go for it. I'm not sure the better parts will make a real difference. That said I decided to spend the extra few dollars and went for the "real" Seasonic because I was buying the best and didn't want to skimp.