Fractal Design Newton R3 1000W Power Supply Review

A Closer Look – Exterior

Power Supply Unit

An all-white power supply is quite rare: fom my recollection the only other brand which offers an all-white power supply is Super Flower and interestingly that’s on their Leadex Platinum line which is a direct competitor to this. The fan is also white on this power supply which gives a nice contrast under the fan grille where it is quite dark.

The label that includes all of the certifications and DC output details is placed in a way that means it should be hidden in most cases. If you mount this power supply in a conventional mid-tower case, meaning at the bottom and with the fan facing up, the label is hidden from view. If you do it with the fan facing down then it isn’t hidden. However, as power supplies become increasingly efficient there is no logical reason to mount the fan facing down: a separate intake-exhaust route isn’t needed anymore. Not to mention that the fan facing upwards is a much nicer look.

On the other side we find the Fractal Design branding but this appears to be the wrong way around. If you bottom mount with the fan facing up then it is upside down, if you bottom mount with the fan facing down it is hidden on the motherboard-tray side of the case.

The base looks fairly plain but it isn’t….

Using a photo editor to exaggerate contrast and highlights reveals a clearer picture of the embossed pattern. The Newton R3 uses a rather neat looking snowflake which is part of Fractal Design’s branding.

A few cables come pre-attached but there are also 8 modular cables clearly separated into peripheral and PCIe. There’s also some extra ventilation at the bottom.

On the rear there is a lot of ventilation for exhausting warm air.

Cabling

Fractal Design present the modular cables beautifully in a fold-out cable holder. You get a great selection of cables to utilise the 1000 watts on offer. There’s an 8 pin EPS, two PCIe 6+2 pins, 12 SATA spread across four cables, four molex spread across two cables and a single FDD connector.

There are also hard wired cables although these are not made to the same standard as the modular ones which is disappointing to say the least. Fixed to the power supply is a motherboard 24 pin, four 6+2 pin PCIe connectors and an 8 pin EPS connector for the CPU. In total you can run up to three high end graphics cards on a dual CPU socket motherboard, Fractal Design give you plenty of flexibility.