The 1STPlayer Steampunk 80+ Gold 750W PSU Review: A New Challenger Emerges
by E. Fylladitakis on May 12, 2020 8:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- PSUs
- 80Plus Gold
- Modular
- 1STPlayer
Hot Test Results
In the following tables we can see that the 1STPlayer Steampunk 750W delivers relatively good power quality. The maximum voltage ripple on the 12V line is 30 mV, an unimpressive figure nowadays, but just 25% of the ATX design guide's recommended 120 mV limit. The regulation of the 12V line is exceptional as well, at 0.8% across the entire nominal load range. 1STPlayer paid less attention to the minor 3.3V/5V lines, the output quality of which is significantly worse. The ripple on the 3.3V/5V lines reaches 16mV/22mV respectively with a recommended maximum at 50 mV, and the regulation is at nearly 2.5% for both lines. These figures are definitely acceptable but not on par with the exceptional performance of the primary 12V line.
| Main Output | ||||||||
| Load (Watts) | 151,84 W | 378,67 W | 564,9 W | 752,23 W | ||||
| Load (Percent) | 20,25% | 50,49% | 75,32% | 100,3% | ||||
| Amperes | Volts | Amperes | Volts | Amperes | Volts | Amperes | Volts | |
| 3.3 V | 1,37 | 3,39 | 3,44 | 3,37 | 5,16 | 3,32 | 6,87 | 3,31 |
| 5 V | 1,37 | 5,18 | 3,44 | 5,16 | 5,16 | 5,1 | 6,87 | 5,06 |
| 12 V | 11,55 | 12,13 | 28,87 | 12,1 | 43,31 | 12,04 | 57,75 | 12,03 |
| Line | Regulation (20% to 100% load) |
Voltage Ripple (mV) | |||||
| 20% Load | 50% Load | 75% Load | 100% Load | CL1 12V |
CL2 3.3V + 5V |
||
| 3.3V | 2,4% | 6 | 8 | 14 | 16 | 16 | 20 |
| 5V | 2,4% | 14 | 16 | 18 | 22 | 16 | 20 |
| 12V | 0,8% | 12 | 18 | 24 | 30 | 34 | 26 |
Operation in high ambient temperatures greatly affects the performance of the Steampunk Gold 750W PSU, especially at higher loads. The average nominal load range (20%-100%) efficiency drops by 1.2% regardless of the input voltage, going down to an average of 91.4% (230 VAC) / 89.9% (115 VAC). There is little change at lower loads but at loads greater than 80% the efficiency drops sharply, suggesting that the components of the PSU are getting stressed under these conditions. Thermal stress would be our first guess but the internal temperatures of the PSU actually are low, therefore we suspect that certain components are reaching their design limit.
As mentioned above, the internal temperatures of the 1STPlayer Steampunk 750W PSU are relatively low for a unit operating inside our hotbox. The thermal controller is aggressively increasing the speed of the fan under these operating conditions, trying to maintain as low as temperatures as possible, sacrificing silence in order to ensure reliability. With such a powerful fan, the cooling headroom is vast, but the noise levels become unbearable for typical users at loads higher than 200 Watts. The cooling fan’s speed seems to peak when the unit is at maximum load, where the sound pressure level nearly reaches 59 dB(A).
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South_DL - Tuesday, May 12, 2020 - link
Not enough Japanese Caps, design not coming from a well known designer, nor innovative either, so, no thank! Go back with your communist party investment back to mainland China and play games with their money, not ours...PeterCollier - Wednesday, May 13, 2020 - link
What's the hype behind Japanese caps? Were they always good? Because in the 80s and 90s, there was a "ghost" or a Japanese capacitor plague that affected everything, including cars.The_Assimilator - Wednesday, May 13, 2020 - link
Pssst! It's no longer the 80s or 90s. Hasn't been for a few decades, in fact.PeterCollier - Wednesday, May 13, 2020 - link
That's why I asked "were they always [considered] good"? Or are the only people who think they're good the people who were born in the last few years?CrystalCowboy - Thursday, May 14, 2020 - link
Wikipedia says the "Capacitor plague" lasted roughly 1999-2007. The brands most affected were Taiwanese. A botched formula stolen through industrial espionage was blamed. Following the plague, board and part manufacturers started paying more attention to cap quality.PeterCollier - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
This is what I'm talking about:https://ednjapan.com/edn/spv/1208/01/news006.html
Tomatotech - Tuesday, May 12, 2020 - link
Please do a review of some picoPSU units! Pick some cheap 200w ones from Amazon or eBay, and test them next to the gold standard, a HDPLEX picoPSU unit!Samus - Wednesday, May 13, 2020 - link
Overall this is a really impressive showing for something built from the ground up, and using Chinese capacitors.My concern with those ripple measurements is, over time, component tolerances will deteriorate and ripple will increase. It's already halfway to the bare minimum spec on the 5v rail, possibly implying this thing will only be reliable for a few years. It's almost definitely undersized or lower quality caps causing the ripple, unless the filtering stages are inherently poorly designed.
wilsonkf - Wednesday, May 13, 2020 - link
This brand is well-known for mediocre quality and cutting corners in Mainland China, though priced very aggressively.promocodelive - Monday, June 1, 2020 - link
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