Chieftec Polaris 850W Power Supply Review

A Closer Look

Out of the box, the Chieftec Polaris presents itself well with a nice and eye-catching aesthetic. Coming in a slightly off-black, almost silver colouring, it certainly presents itself as a very potent creature that wouldn’t look out of place inside a gaming PC build.

While there is some branding to the design, its size and position are absolutely perfect to add rather than detract. It seems pretty clear that Chieftec is very keen to push this as a potent but pretty PSU design. And it’s not often we get to say those two things in the same sentence.

In something that is always useful for the more technically minded, the power supply base has a sticker detailing how the power is allocated throughout the rails. Although this will likely not mean anything to the vast majority of consumers, nor will it be important, it’s beneficial to see this information clearly presented for those of you who need these specifications (such as us).

The top of the power supply sees the Chieftec logo prominently placed to the centre. This is part of an attractive metal grill that covers the fan. Based on the design, it would appear that the 120mm fan has been incorporated into the overall aesthetic, with parts of its frame visible beneath. Given its nice central location, this should ensure that the airflow immediately hits all important internal components.

The modular power input bank is well-organized, with each specific section being clearly denoted for its usage. The style of the inputs means that both removal and insertion of cables is really easy and doesn’t put too much strain on the fingers either.

The exhaust section of the power supply is excellent as it utilizes pretty much all of the space available. This is, of course, assisted through the use of a honeycomb style pattern, but as you can see below, space has been utilized to its full potential.

As you might note, there is no ‘hybrid’ fan function switch available. However, in more modern power supply designs, we have often seen this ‘function’ pretty much built into the design. We won’t know for certain, though, until we begin our testing.

Cabling

The cabling is fairly standard, with it coming within a strong plastic protective casing. This is, however, often beneficial as this allows for good flexibility and, by proxy, strong levels of cable management. Like the power supply input bank, each cable is itemized to help you know exactly what it should hook up to. With each coming with a generous length, you shouldn’t have any problems getting all your components connected and tidied up.

Internals – A Look Inside!

At an initial glance, the internals of the Chieftec Polaris look exceptionally well organised. There is minimal cabling visible, and overall, all of the key components look well spaced. Admittedly, there is a little bit more cabling on show than we’d usually like, but it does seem to be well out of the way not to have any notable impact on air flow.

A closer look at the fan suggests that this is a rather generic option Chieftec has utilized here. This is a little disappointing as we generally prefer to see manufacturers opt for designs they’ve created themselves. We should note though that we have seen this specific fan utilized within many other PSU products and, as such, they surely can’t all be using it unless they know it to be pretty good. However, coming with a fluid dynamic bearing, this is indicative that the fan should perform reasonably well in terms of noise output.

A closer look at the PCB does show things to be a little more cluttered than they were from a distance. On the whole, however, all of the important key components do still appear to be nicely spaced. This, hopefully, should result in some good airflow, which means that the fan doesn’t have to work as hard and, by proxy, we should see some reasonably low levels of noise output.

Although not specifically mentioned anywhere in the key features, a look at the main capacitors show them to be ‘Rubycon’ designs. This is a Japanese designed capacitor and one that we often see used within high-quality power supply products. Rated to 105C, this is exactly what you want to see and, all going well, this should translate into some nice test results once we get this hooked up.

Overall Thoughts!

Both internally and externally, the Chieftec Polaris seems to tick all of the right boxes in terms of aesthetics, quality build design, and having all the potential to be an excellent high-end power supply option for consumers. The looks, however, do not always reflect the performance. So, just how well does this perform? Let’s get onto those all-important results!