PSU put to the test

Since I didn't have any other 520W PSU at my disposal, I had to compare the SAF520-Sapphire with my old Enermax EG365P-VA 350W and the new ThermalTake PurePower W0015 480W. Motherboard Monitor 5 was used to create a log for each PSU, showing the voltages on both the +5V and +12V rails. These voltages were measured on 5 second intervals, while stressing my test rig with Folding@Home, Toast and SuperPi -- thus generating 100% load.

terangreal's test setup
CPU	AMD Athlon XP1700+
Mainboard	Abit NF7-S rev2.0
Cooling	Thermalright SLK900U w. 92mm Papst
Memory	2 * 512Mb PC3200 TwinMOS
Video	ATI R9000 AIW
Hard drives	Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 80GB P-ATA 2Mb Western Digital WD1200JBN 120GB P-ATA 8Mb
Optical drives	NEC ND-1300A DVD burner Lite-On 12x/48x DVD reader

To ensure both the +5V and +12V rails were sufficiently stressed, the Athlon was doing a prime-stable 2000MHz (10*200) on 1.68V. The memory was running at the same FSB - for the record, that adds up to 400MHz - pulling 2.91V from the power supplies. During all three testing periods I decided not to leave my rig alone, but continued ripping DVD's to put just that little bit more strain on the PSU's.


the numbers


First one up, the +5V rail. The Enermax EG365P-VA is a bit behind, going up and down between 4.95V and 4.97V. Nothing dangerously low here, 0.05V off isn't that bad. But both the Global WIN SAF520 and the ThermalTake W0015 point out that it could be better - although not continuously, they both hit 5V. The SAF520 performs slightly better then the W0015, but doesn't outperform it's competitor.


The plot thickens, as we move on to the +12V rail. Here we have a different situation, with the EG365P-VA topping the chart with a maximum voltage of 11.98V and a minimum of 11.92V. Still, the SAF520 isn't performing that bad, switching between 11.86V and 11.80V, with a single burst of 11.92V. On the other hand, where the W0015 is on par with the SAF520 when we look at the +5V rail, it has some difficulties keeping up with the other power supplies on the +12V rail. It mostly resides at 11.73V, with only a few peaks to 11.80V and a single drop to 11.67V.




Well, nothing much to add here, as the graphs clearly speak for themselves. The SAF520 offers an average 4.99V for the +5V rail, and 11.84V for the +12V rail. A decent power supply unit, I would say.