Lian Li SP850 SFX Form Factor Power Supply Review

While standard PC chassis designs offer a plethora of power supply choices for consumers, I think it's fair to say that when it comes to SFF and SFX builds your choices are often, comparatively speaking, a lot more limited. - With the release of the new Lian Li SP850 SFX, however, this definitely seems to be looking to offer itself as a total solution. Not only does it offer an impressive 750 watts of power and 80-Plus Gold efficiency in a remarkably small package, but it also comes with a PCIe Gen5 power connection right out of the box! Lian Li SP850 SFX Form Factor PSU We should start by noting that the SP850 SFX is available in either black or white designs and I would concede that Lian Li doesn't appear to be making much of a fuss about this particular point. Black PSUs are plentiful, white?... Not so much. Still, though, you actually have a choice here and with both offering the same features at the same price point, the aesthetic choice really is yours to make! On the whole though, while coming as an SFX design, Lian Li has packed an impressive array of features that definitely makes this an excellent choice on the surface. Put simply, I think this design could give a standard (and twice as large) PSU a solid run for its money and performance! What Does Lian Li Have to Say? "The Lian Li SP850 is a premium-grade fully modular SFX power supply. The 80PLUS Gold power supply is built-to-last with high-quality 100% Japanese electrolytic capacitors, multi-protection (OCP, OVP, SCP, OPP, UVP, OTP), and includes a future-proof PCIe 5 connector for up to 350-400W delivery. The SP850 also has a Zero RPM Mode until 40% load and gradually increases fan speed only when needed." Features 80 PLUS GOLD EfficiencyFully modular braided cables for a clean lookHigh durability Japanese electrolytic capacitorsZERO RPM mode under 40% load for silent operationSleek and classic exterior with brushed aluminium housingOVP/OPP/SCP/UVP/OCP/OTP protectionPCIe 5.0 (12 pin) power cable included Specifications For more detailed specifications, please visit the official product page via the link here! Connections Coming as a fully modular design, Lian Li has confirmed the following cables the SP850 is provided with: 1x24/20-Pin motherboard connector (300mm) x 1pcs1x8/4+4 PinCPU/ATX12V connector (600mm) x 2pcs1x8/6+2 Pin PCleconnector (400mm) x 1pcs2x8/6+2 Pin PCle connector (400mm-120mm) x 1pcs4xSATAconnector (120mm) x 2pcs4x4-PinPeripheral connector (120mm-120mm-120mm- 120mm) x 1pcs1x12VHPWR 8P*2 to 12+4P (400mm) x 1pcs Packaging Lian Li gets things off to a big and bold start with a nice clear image of the SP850 front and centre on the packaging. Admittedly, it's a little disappointing to see so much empty space on the front, but you are given all of the key features at a somewhat easy-on-the-eye glance. In terms of technical details, specifications, and charts, the rest of the box work is absolutely covered with useful information. In fact, the front of the box is arguably the most sparse with pretty much every other side conveying useful information about the performance of the Lian Li SP850. So, while the front could be better, in terms of letting you know what you're getting, Lian Li has done a fantastic job here! Accessories As this is a power supply you clearly don't expect much in terms of accessories, which is just as well as you largely don't get much with the Lian Li SP850. - Aside from a product manual and a promotional leaflet, the only other item of note is that the cabling is at least provided within a cloth sack. No, not a canvas bag, 'sack' is about the most descriptive word I can give you. With that being said though, it's always nice when a PSU comes with something to store spare/unneeded cables within so I'm not going to grumble about this too much. It's functional, it's appreciated, but it's not overly impressive. But, it is undoubtedly better than nothing! A Closer Look Although we know that the Lian Li SP850 is an SFX power supply, it still surprises you when you open up the box, take it out, and reflect on just how small it is. It seems incredible that they managed to pack 750 watts of power (with 80-Plus Gold efficiency) into such a tiny package! Aesthetically though, it looks excellent and particularly so this white variant we have. - On the top of the power supply you have a nice large vented area with the 92mm fan sitting behind it. You'll also note what is probably the most brazen and eye-catching part of the design. The Lian Li logo is slapped front and centre and despite it being rather terse, I actually think it works quite well and especially so with its stainless steel/brushed metal effect look. There is, of course, branding to other parts of the Lian Li SP850. This is, however, nicely understated which, in my opinion at least, really allows that white colouring to pop and grab the attention it deserves. The cable input bank is exceptionally well organised for what is a very small PSU. Each section is clearly itemised to denote its usage and with a fair amount of space between the ports, both inserting and removing cables is very easy. The rear of the PSU has plenty of exhaust space which pretty much accommodates all the space that was available. This has even been extended to go around the main switch and power input. This is, however, undoubtedly a key factor in the semi-passive cooling design the Lian Li SP850 has. Cabling With white cabling to match the PSU, on an aesthetic level, this gets a huge thumbs up from us. Yes, it seems like madness, but many manufacturers often decide to throw in black cables with a white PSU and, more often than not, it completely destroys the overall look they should have been going for. The cables themselves are nice and flexible and come with individual braiding to ensure good protection. - In something of a minor complaint, however, the length of the cables isn't overly generous. It does, in fact, hinder the design so much that for those of you who want solid levels of cable management, you're likely going to be well rewarded going for good SFX cases rather than the generally poorer inexpensive alternatives. A particular grumble is the main motherboard cable which is only 300mm long. And you'll probably lose about 10mm of that through bends to get it from the PSU to the motherboard itself. - I really wish these were just a little bit longer. Oh sure, not so long as to completely compromise the point of an SFX power supply, but just another 50mm or so would undoubtedly make a huge difference for many consumers. One mildly odd aspect was found on a singular cable. On one end it said CPU, and on the other it said VGA. - I have absolutely no idea what this cable is for and can only presume that a typo has been made somewhere on the ends where Lian Li (rather usefully - except in this situation) tried to help consumers easily identify the cables. I can only guess that one of them is supposed to say PSU. Which one though? Well, unless I'm missing something here, your guess is as good as mine! Internals - A Look Inside! Opening up the Lian Li SP850 is remarkably simple albeit clearly something you shouldn't do as this will invalidate your 5-year warranty. The initial impressions, however, are excellent as for such a lot being packed into a tight space, the Lian Li SP850 looks exceptionally clean. A closer look at the fan is admittedly a little disappointing as rather than a Lian Li design, it is, instead, a third-party manufacturer. We have encountered 'YaLin' many times before and it does appear to be one of the most popular choices with many PSU manufacturers. Likely, if we're being brutally honest, because its a relatively inexpensive choice. With that being said though, power supply fans don't necessarily need to be 'good'. Certainly not as good as a case or CPU cooler fan. They just need to move air and, hopefully, so it fairly quietly, which, all going well, this one will. While the PCB is exceptionally busy, somehow Lian Li has still managed to make it well organised, and surprisingly presentable. It is legitimately surprising to see this as well organised as it is when you consider the features this PSU has. A closer look a the capacitor (a very closer look) reveals it to be a Japanese design coming from the highly reputable manufacturer 'Rubycon'. - Rated to 105C, this is exactly what you want to see in any quality power supply design. Overall Thoughts! For such a small PSU, I have to say that I'm highly impressed with the Lian Li SP850 both inside and out. It's actually somewhat incredible that for having such a small amount of real estate to work with Lian Li has managed to put together a design that not only looks nice but is exceptionally clean inside too. All in all, this has given us a lot of confidence that this should provide some solid results in our testing. There is, however, only one way to find out for sure... Let's get this hooked up and see what happens! Methodology & Testing At eTeknix we take the power supply testing procedure very seriously and have invested a lot of resources into acquiring the appropriate testing equipment. For all power supply reviews, we test the power supplies with dedicated power supply testing equipment. This means we are able to get the most accurate results from our testing as opposed to using software benchmarks (such as OCCT) or multi-meter readouts which are broadly inaccurate. Testing Hardware Sunmoon SM-5500ATE Active Load Tester (1200W rated)Stingray DS1M12 USB OscilloscopeVoltcraft DT-10L laser tachometer What the eTeknix Test Procedure Involves Testing each power supply at 20/40/60/80/100% load (with load balanced across all rails) and measuring PFC (power factor correction), efficiency (actual power divided by power "pulled at the wall") and voltage regulation (deviance from expected voltages of 3.3/5/12 on the main rails).Measuring ripple with an oscilloscope at 20/40/60/80/100% load.Measuring fan speed after a stabilisation period of five minutes at each load scenario using the Voltcraft DT-10L laser tachometer and a reflective strip on the fan.Testing each power supply's OPP (Over Power Protection) mechanism and seeing how many watts each power supply can deliver before shutting down Other Things to Consider We recognise that a single 12-volt cable can provide only 6 Amps before overheating (which corrupts voltage regulation and efficiency) and so we used an adequate number of cables for each power supply to ensure there is not efficiency loss from poor cables selectionOur Sunmoon SM-5500ATE power supply tester is not capable of testing more than 300W on each of the 12-volt rails so where a power supply provides more than 300W on a 12-volt rail that power is distributed over multiple 12-volt rails on the load tester. For example a power supply with one 12 volt rail supplying 750 watts would be spread equally over three 12 volt rails on the load tester, a power supply with two 450W 12v rails would be spread over four 12v rails on the load tester, two 225W 12v rails for each of the 12v rails on the unit.We use the same time scale and horizontal millivolt scale on our oscilloscope for all ripple tests, that is a 20ms T/DIV (horizontal) and a 0.02 V/DIV (vertical) meaning the scale is from -80mV to +80mV, ATX spec dictates that the 12v rail must fall within 150mv of ripple and the 3.3/5 within 50mv so that scale allows us to include both 150 and 50mV peaks. (Some older PSU reviews use different scales which were later ditched as the visual representation they give is inadequate, in these reviews written measurements are provided only).Deviance is the terminology used to represent the way voltages diverge from the expected values Voltage Regulation To test voltage regulation we load the power supply to five different load scenarios that give an equal spread of load across every single rail. So that means 20% on all rails, 40% on all rails and so on. We then calculate the average deviance of each rail from its expected voltage. Ideally, anything of +/- 2% regulation is seen as a very good result. Power Efficiency Power efficiency is measured by calculating actual supplied wattage divided by the wattage drawn at the wall/plug, multiplied by 100 to give a percentage. We then compare that to the particular 80 Plus certification the company claims to see if it meets that. You can see the 80 Plus certifications below, we always test power supplies at 230v. Power Factor Correction Power Factor Correction is the ratio of the real power flowing to the load, to the apparent power in the circuit. The aim of PFC is to make the load circuitry that is power factor corrected appear purely resistive (apparent power equal to real power). In this case, the voltage and current are in phase and the reactive power consumption is zero. The closer the number to one the better as this allows the most efficient delivery of electrical power (Source - Wikipedia). Ripple Noise and Ripple can easily be measured by an oscilloscope. These show how much voltage fluctuation there is on a particular rail. We tested the rail stability of the 3.3-volt, 5-volt and 12-volt rails using an identical time and millivolt scale for all graphs. millivolt ripple is measured by the peak to peak size of the voltage curve. The latest ATX 12 volt version 2.3 specifications state that ripple from peak to peak must be no higher than 50 millivolts for the 3.3-volt and 5-volt rails, while the 12-volt rail is allowed up to 120 millivolts peak to peak to stay within specifications. Millivolt figures are stated to the closest increment of 5 given their variability. OPP Power supplies often quote as having various protection mechanisms such and the most important of these is Over Power Protection. In our testing we crank up the power draw until the power supply either shuts down (meaning the OPP mechanism is present and working) or blows up (meaning it is either not present or not working). We then note the maximum power consumption before the power supply shut down, or before it blew up. Fan Speed When testing in a power supply laboratory it is difficult to take fan noise readings as the noise from the Sunmoon test equipment and air conditioning corrupts everything. The next best thing in our circumstances was reading off the fan speed with a tachometer to get an idea for the noise. The ambient temperature during testing held constant at 22 degrees, with 1 degree of variation. Each power supply had a consistent time period of 5 minutes to stabilise between each load scenario. In my experience, the following general relationships apply between noise levels and fan speeds, though it can vary greatly between the type of fan used. Below 800 RPM - Inaudible/Silent800 to 1000 RPM - Barely audible1000 - 1200 RPM - Audible but still quiet1200 - 1400 RPM - Moderately noisy1400 - 1800 RPM - Noisy1800 RPM or above - Intolerable Efficiency Although only officially rated as 80-Plus Gold in terms of its efficiency, our results indicated that the Lian Li SP850 actually performed on a level better associated with the higher Platinum tier. And this isn't by a small margin either. While its mid-tier was a little borderline on the 94% required, its 100% and 20% load was both well in excess of 90% which is notably higher (and better just in case you were not getting the picture) than its official Gold sticker on the box! So, while this might officially be 80-Plus Gold, the reality is that the Lian Li SP850 actually performs well beyond that remit and by a pretty huge margin too! PFC (Power Factor Correction) Similar to the efficiency scores, the PFC results in our testing were exceptionally impressive. Even the 20% load (which typically for most power supplies tends to drop to around the 0.85 area) was notably high. Overall, this again strongly indicates that the Lian Li SP850 isn't just impressive for its stature. It's packed a lot of quality components into its design! Voltage Regulation Regardless of the load output, the voltage regulation provided in our testing was excellent. As you can see in the total overall average, the scores were exceptionally solid providing incredibly low levels of deviancy. Admittedly, the -12V results were a little more excitable but this isn't unusual nor indeed concerning given how this particular rail is less and less important in modern system designs. With the key +12V rail offering a total deviancy of just around 0.2%, however, we again find ourselves incredibly impressed! Ripple You would've been forgiven for thinking that for a low of power coming out of a relatively small package, the delivery might have been a little excitable. Upon conducting ripple tests, however, the results are not just good, they're honestly excellent. - As you can see below, the 3.3V and 5V rails provided a maximum score of just 6 whereas the 12V rail, while a little higher, was still massively below the EU limit of 50. Put simply, as per all other results so far, the ripple is again proving to be massively better than many might've thought possible from an SFX power supply design. Load (%) 3.3V Ripple 5V Ripple 12V Ripple 203.84.211 404.5512.2 604.85.614 805.45.815.4 1005.6617.8 Over Power Protection and Max Wattage Although officially rated to 750 watts of power output, it's never unusual that a PSU is capable of going beyond those remits. This is, of course, never advisable for consumers and you should always purchase a power supply suitable for your components (and with an additional bit of wiggle room just for comfort). - If things are pushed too hard, however, it's important to know that protections are in place to remove the risk of any potential damage to your system or its components. So, with this in mind, how did the Lian Li SP850 fare? Well, in something seemingly representing what is a growing theme of this review, impressively well! - We can confirm that the OPP worked entirely as expected, but what was particularly impressive was that this small SFX PSU was capable of offering circa 49% over its rated amount. As noted above, you shouldn't, of course, ever be in a position where you rely upon exceeding the rated amount. With that being said though, this isn't just a solid bit of wiggle room. It's massive! Fan Speed Coming with a small 92mm fan, you'd undoubtedly expect that when this PSU is working hard at full load, its cooling solution would likely be a very busy creature too! - In truth though, Lian Li has clearly considered this within the design and provided an excellent solution. Admittedly, 2,000RPM might initially sound like a mildly terrifying figure and perhaps has you concerned that this PSU might be a little on the noisy side. In truth though, it's not. It was barely audible at full load but I would add a curious quirk in the design. The Lian Li SP850 does come with a built-in 'Zero RPM' functionality. In other words, when below circa 40% load the fan will not run at all unless deemed absolutely necessary. Unlike other PSU models, this is not a controllable feature and is an integrated part of the design. It seemed clear though when testing that temperature, rather than power output, is the key element in this design. - While the fan did indeed stop operating below circa 50% load, it still seemed to take around 5-10 minutes at 80% and 100% load before it deemed it necessary to run. I did, in fact, have to step away from our test bench for a little while and then check the fan's connection I was that surprised it didn't immediately kick into action. - Overall though, even at full load, and even with that somewhat scary 2,000RPM figure, the cooling solution is still impressively quiet. I should note that when the fan did operate, the power supply was getting rather hot. I could, in fact, actually feel the heat coming off it. It would, therefore, be interesting to see how the fan operation is tied into the temperatures with some celsius figures. Alas though, Lian Li has not provided these. - Overall though, for as small and potent as the Lian Li SP850, the fan seems to be exceptionally well designed for the task in hand to ensure good cooling while keeping noise surprisingly low, and in low output instances, absolutely silent. How Much Does it Cost? Lian Li has confirmed that the SP850 is available to purchase now, in black or white, for a price in the region of $149.99. And I'm just going to say this now, based on the level of performance this provided in our testing, and given that this is an SFX PSU coming with plenty of excellent features (and not to mention 750 watts of power output) this figure is highly impressive. You could easily see similar figures for more 'standard' larger PSU designs that wouldn't perform anywhere near well as the Lian Li SP850. Throw that all in with an impressive 5-year warranty and, overall, I consider this some excellent value for money! Performance At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'm incredibly impressed as to how much performance Lian Li has squeezed out of this small package. Throughout all of our extensive testing, the SP850 continually provided us with results that were well in excess not of its officially stated figures, but our wildest expectations. This isn't just impressive for an SFX PSU, the results in our testing would be impressive for a full-sized model! Practicality & Functionality Lian Li SP850's practicality undoubtedly comes down to the cabling, and in this regard, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Offering a fully modular design, this is clearly good for users as you only need to install the cables your components require. On the other hand, however, the length of the cabling is exceptionally short meaning that good levels of management within a case might be tricky. The main cable for the motherboard power connection would only be, in practical terms, about 20CM long once fitted into a system. That's not a lot of room and does pretty much necessitate the usage of an SFX/SFF case to ensure that the cabling length isn't going to be a problem. It's a small grumble, but overall I wish the cables were just a little bit longer. With that being said though, with a PCIe Gen5 cable being offered right out of the box, the Lian Li SP850 certainly offers some solid levels of future-proofing for consumers looking to buy now and upgrade their GPU later! - The only moderate downside is that this isn't technically PCIe Gen5 compliant as it only offers wattage output of 350-400W. Full compliancy requires up to 600W. - So, think compatible, ready, but not technically at the full-blown PCIe Gen5 standard. Should I Buy One? In regards to if you should buy the Lian Li SP850, the better question is are you planning on building an SFX system? - Yes, a rather obvious point, but if you're not, then you're clearly better off looking elsewhere. We said at the start of the review that SFX power supplies are, compared to standard models, quite limited and the clear reason for that is because MATX/mid-tower cases and builds are far more common. For SFX builds though, the Lian Li SP850 is undoubtedly one of the best power supplies you can buy at the moment. It offers masses of excellent features, and in terms of its performance, punches massively above its weight. - Perhaps best of all, its price tag is exceptionally competitive making this not only one of the best SFX PSUs you can buy at the moment but also, by a pretty big margin, one of the best value-for-money options around! Lian Li SP850 SFX Form Factor Power Supply Review