ADATA XPG CYBERCORE Platinum 1300W Power Supply Review

A Closer Look

I find the XPG CYBERCORE an increasingly curious creature. Despite carrying features and specifications that seem more akin to a professional/enthusiast-level product, aesthetically, this looks more like it has more been designed to reside within a generic gaming PC. Which it could, of course, do, but do you really need a 1,300 watt PSU for your system? I think that’s probably nearly twice as much as my pretty decently specced system gobbles up.

What about those aesthetics and design choices though? Well, let’s take a closer look!

We’ll start with the top of the power supply and take a look at the fan intake area. Largely because this is the design choice I dislike the most. – It’s not that I have a problem with the fan, the fan covering, or the logo in the middle. It’s the fact that, for reasons I can’t really ascertain, this has been designed to be hugely off-centre. Now, admittedly, this isn’t too uncommon. I’ve seen plenty of power supplies that take the fan slightly off. This is, however, largely to ensure better placement for internet heat sinks, and even then, usually, compromises are made.

This one, however, just looks wrong.

Maybe it’s due to the fan covering design, but I really just find this hugely displeasing to look at. Admittedly, this might just be me being a bit anal about symmetry. You have the images though to make your own mind up, but like it, I do not!

While there is branding to the XPG CYBERCORE, as you might expect, against everything seen so far, it is actually rather understated and well placed. If anything, and in a very rare circumstance I can genuinely say this, I think XPG could’ve perhaps have afforded to go a little bigger. Given the other aesthetics, this is perhaps a little too subtle for its own good.

The cable input banks are perhaps one of the biggest I have ever seen on a power supply. Given that you are provided with absolutely masses of connectors, however, I suppose that this was a bit of a clue that they all could end up going somewhere. Despite its size, however, it is exceptionally well organised with each section clearly denoting its usage as well as offering plenty of space between the different ports for easy cable removal/insertion.

On this point, however, I should note that due to the rather thick braiding on the cabling, insertion is actually quite tricky and especially so when this starts to get a bit crowded.

The exhaust bank on the XPG CYBERCORE is pretty straightforward. With this power supply offering no kind of ‘hybrid’ functionality, the rear exhaust panel has pretty much been devoted to airflow which, although not quite using all of the apparent space available, should still help promote a nice solid bit of movement.

Finally, the underside of the power supply has a sticker listing all of the technical specifications of the XPG CYBERCORE. While this information will likely have no relevance to most people, given that this is an exceptionally potent and seemingly premium PSU design, these figures will be both useful and important for enthusiast level users and especially so for those within the overclocking community.

Cabling

The cabling for the XPG CYBERCORE comes in an exceptionally thick and high-quality braided casing. While this is certainly good in terms of ensuring that none of them gets damaged, this has the downside of making them exceptionally inflexible. As part of the processor of attaching this PSU to our bench tester, the cables were exceptionally difficult to work with and particularly so on the power supply itself as things started to get cluttered and the cables were not making things any easier with their near-total inflexibility.

Admittedly, that’s something of an over-exaggeration. They do bend. Given how thick they are, however, the extra protection offered in these cables may ultimately frustrate more people than they please when it comes to installation and management within a PC chassis.

Internals – A Look Inside!

The initial internal presentation of the XPG CYBERCORE is excellent with a nice and clean design aesthetic with no untoward cabling or unpleasantly coloured components. In fact, compared to the outside, this is perhaps significantly more promising territory.

Starting with the fan, again, I’m not attempting to be unkind of XPG here, but given that they’ve made such a big deal about this, I sincerely hope it provides some mindblowing results in our fan speed testing because, on the whole, this doesn’t look particularly fancy. Again though, I do have to question the merits of putting such a seriously high specification fan within a power supply. If this was on or associated with a CPU cooler or AIO, great, no problem, fantastic. For a PSU though… Hmm… I just don’t get it.

The PCB for the XPG CYBERCORE is exceptionally well presented with the only mildly distracting aspect of the design being the earthing cable. While everything looks good, however, the off-centre placement of the cooling fan doesn’t seem to tally up with the internet components, nothing appears to be specifically concentrated where the fan has been situated. Well, except maybe the main capacitors.

What about those capacitors though? Well, a closer look confirmed that they are indeed 100% Japanese coming from the highly-reputable ‘Nippon Chemi-con’. These are, without a doubt, some of the best utilised within power supply designs and seeing them here gives me a lot of encouragement that our testing (coming up shortly) will throw up some exceptionally decent results.

Overall Thoughts!

Overall, the XPG CYBERCORE looks to be an excellent power supply. I’ll freely concede though that on a design and aesthetic level, I have a number of small questions that are beginning to ball up. – It is, therefore, my distinct hope that in our testing processor, the XPG CYBERCORE will blow me away! Well, not literally. Unless that fan is a lot fancier (and potent) than I expect.