MSI MEG Ai1300P PCIE5 1300W 80 Plus Platinum Power Supply Review

There's no shortage of amazing power supplies these days, but the latest hardware from MSI is certainly going to grab your attention with big power, high efficiency, all the latest PSU features and a very attractive design that stands out from the crowd. The MSI MEG Ai1300P PCIE5 has a lot to offer, and at 1300W it's going to meet, if not exceed, the requirements of even the most demanding high-end gaming PC or workstation. It features ATX 3.0 and PCIe 5.0 support, with the latest 12VHPWR 600W GPU power connector, fully sleeved cables, and fantastic 80 Plus Platinum efficiency, as well as the best Japanese 105c rated capacitors, promising big power and reliability that's backed up by a 10-year warranty. It can pull up to the full 1300W on a single 12V rail, but it supports digital switching between single and multiple rails. However, looking at the hardware, I suspect it'll push even further beyond that without breaking a sweat! Features Supports Nvidia® GeForce RTXTM 40 Series graphics cards ATX 3.0 fully supported PCIe 5.0 ready, with native 16-pin connector Software sync with MSI center Full modular design Sleeve cables 80 PLUS Platinum certified for high-efficiency 100% all Japanese 105oC capacitor Active PFC design Industrial level protection with OVP, OCP, OPP, OTP, SCP, UVP LLC Half Bridge Topology with DC-DC module design For in-depth specifications please visit the official product page here. For everything else, join me on the further pages of this review for a closer look at what it has to offer. Packaging & Accessories The box looks great, with a largely black design and a stylish closeup of the PSU on the front showcasing its stunning black and gold design. Around the back, there's a full rundown of power output, connectors, cable length, efficiency and more. In the box, you'll find the PSU (obviously), a bag full of cable combs, a mouse mat, some magnetic panels to customise the PSU, and a bag with all the PSU cables neatly stored within. A Closer Look This is one gorgeous looking power supply, by far one of the best looking we've ever seen, with a blend of matte black and gold that really makes it pop, but also a colour theme that will match up with many of the flagship motherboards and graphics cards in the MSI range. There's plenty of ventilation on the top, below which we can see one of MSI's own premium-quality fans. On the underside, there's the usual rating sticker, nothing too fancy really. Down the side, there are some embossed lines, which match up with the angle of the fan ventilation on the top, as well as some MEG-branded vanity plates finished in gold. And it's the same design on the other side too. Around the back, there's a lot of ventilation, allowing for efficient cooling, and of course, there's the power switch and the AC line-in. The connector panel is packed, but that's hardly surprising given the 1300W output! There's a smart connection port on the right for digital control, and all the connector blocks are divided up into various groups to make them easier to understand. Unfortunately, someone had used this PSU before my testing for a display, and they did a pretty poor job of repacking the cables, so they're all a bit shoved into the bag. However, you can see they all come with individually sleeve premium cables, except the 12VHPWR which has a traditional thick sleeving. A Closer Look - Interior The fan is an MSI Silent Gale Fan, which features a high-pressure 9-blade design and a hydro-dynamic bearing, this is a much more premium fan than we typically see in PSU designs, but hey, I'm never going to complain about that! Heck, it even has a sleeved cable, who does that on a PSU? The interior of the PSU looks amazing, and while there is a lot of hardware packed into it, it all looks well laid out to ensure there's good airflow between each component, or to allow room for the larger multi-fin stacked aluminium heatsinks, of which I can see three in total, ensuring optimal cooling of the major components. To get 1300W into this space, the board uses multiple daughter boards, such as this one here that houses the 5v and 3.3v coils. There's an air of over-engineering here though, with what looks like six Y and two X capacitors, and multiple filters on the AC line-in, feeding into a pair of rectifying bridges, each with their heatsinks. The main transformer is huge, with two additional ones throughout the PSU, and again, very robust-looking wiring and connections at all points here. There are two main capacitors, and while all the capacitors in here are premium Japanese design, these two absolute units are rated at 400V and 680 uF, and I don't doubt this PSU will easily exceed the rated 1300W as a result. Beyond that, there are a few more control boards, taking care of the digital monitoring and control features, and while this is largely a common design for a Channel-Well Technologies (CWT) PSU, these additional digital features are add-ons to make this PSU more advanced, with real-time power status monitors, rail switching, intelligent fan modes, gaming intelligence, and more. 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 can 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-8800 Active Load Tester Stingray DS1M12 USB Oscilloscope Voltcraft 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") which also uses a 50% load test, 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. Transient loads taken with an oscilloscope are taken from 0% to 100% on the 12v raid, 3.3v rail, and then both combined. Measuring fan speed after a stabilisation period of five minutes at each loading 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. Any deviation from this will be explained per review as appropriate on the respective testing pages, but this methodology page will remain unchanged. 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) so we used an adequate number of cables for each power supply to ensure there is no efficiency loss from poor cable selection. If there is more than one 12VHPWR on a PSU, all will be used to test their combined loads. 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 deviation 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 the 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. Transient Loads Power Factor Correction Power Factor Correction is the ratio of the real power flowing to the load, to the apparent power in the circuit. PFC aims 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 An oscilloscope can easily measure noise and Ripple. 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 are often quoted as having various protection mechanisms 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 of the noise. The ambient temperature during testing is held constant at 22 degrees, with 1 degree of variation. Each power supply had a consistent 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/Silent 800 to 1000 RPM - Barely audible 1000 - 1200 RPM - Audible but still quiet 1200 - 1400 RPM - Moderately noisy 1400 - 1800 RPM - Noisy 1800 - 2000 RPM or above - Intolerable Internal Components This is just an example of what you can expect to see on a PSU interior. Efficiency The efficiency is very good, and it scored right on the edge of making the 80 Plus Platinum rating, throughout most of the range, but easily exceeded it once the PSU got up to 100% load. Even so, it's still Platinum-rated, and that's really a fantastic achievement for any PSU. PFC (Power Factor Correction) The PFC is also very good, with a rating that's very smooth in transition as the load increases, but between 60-100% load the PFC is just 0.96 to 0.98. This means there's significantly less power correction being done, and this will result in less heat being generated or power being wasted, although you could argue that they're one and the same thing. Voltage Regulation Voltage regulation is fantastic, and while there's a higher deviance on the 3.3% keep in mind that it's on a smaller voltage so this is just 3.39v and overall still excellent, but with the most important 12V being under 1% is superb, and well under the 3% target we like to see. Ripple We aim to see under 50mv on the 12v rail, and yet this PSU is between 15.6 and 22mv which is just exceptional. Under 150mv for the other rails is the target, and they're in single digits, which makes them some of the lowest and most consistent figures I've ever seen from any PSU. 3.3V 5V 12V Over Power Protection and Max Wattage 1300W you say? A mere starting point for this power supply, as it blasted past 2000W before the OPP kicked in and shut the PSU down, so yeah, dealing with significant power spikes really isn't going to be an issue here. Transient Loads These results measure the power supply from 0% load to 100% load on various rails to simulate a power spike from your system. Typically, we would like to see as small a spike as possible relative to the requested voltage. With modern GPUs being notorious for power spikes, this is becoming more relevant in modern PSU design. Transients are very clean here, with the virtually instant transition for the 3.3v, a smooth ramp for the 5v, and while there was a tiny overshoot on the 12v, it was extremely small and quickly corrected out to the desired voltage, reflecting the range seen in the ripple and PFC we saw earlier. 0-100% 3V 0-100% +5VSB 0-100% 12V Cross-Loads In either crossload scenario, the 3.3v remains pretty much unchanged, with only a slight increase in the 5v while loading the 12v rail, and there's a slight dip in the 12v rail at 20% load, but again, on track with what we would consider a smooth operation. Fan Speed The fan will run silent at lower loads or temperatures, with a steady PWM increase throughout the range and the PSU only hitting 100% fan speed after sitting at 100% load for a few minutes. How Much Does it Cost? The MSI MEG Ai1300P PCIE5 1300W 80 Plus Platinum Power Supply is available now from Amazon for £324.72, and while that is a lot of money, this is a pretty extreme power supply in more ways than one. The power output is high, the efficiency is very high, the hardware is all premium quality components and extremely well made, the cables are individually sleeved premium cables, and then there's also all the digital features on top of that. So while it is expensive, you are getting what you pay for, albeit, I must admit that it's likely "more PSU" than a lot of people will need, but if you want quality, this is where you'll find it. You can check for up-to-date stock and prices on Amazon here. Overview MSI has designed the MEG Ai1300P to be an exemplary power supply with little to no compromise, and I think it's fair to say that they've achieved their goal. There are perhaps two tiny things that stand out, but overall, I wouldn't say they were any concern at all. From my own testing, it only just made the 80 Plus Platinum rating by a fraction, not that this is an issue, but it was a close call. That is to say, this is still an extremely efficient PSU, so that's really a compliment overall. The 3.3v was a touch over our target of 3% but largely, that target is most important on the 12V and the 5VSB rails, and 3% is actually a much smaller deviance on 3.3v, so it came in at 3.39v, but that again is still very good. That's it though, I really am clutching at some very petty straws here as this is a really great power supply. With quality components, all Japanese capacitors, and digital monitor systems, it's hardly surprising to see this power supply deliver clean and constant power with very low ripple. In fact, some of the lowest ripple we've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of great PSUs over the years! It's also one of the best-looking power supplies on the market, with PSUs often being a bit generic and boring, which makes sense as so few PC cases leave the PSU on show these days. However, with its black and gold design, premium quality fan design, magnetic vanity plates, and braided cables, the Ai1300P is one of the rare power supply designs you would want to leave out on show. Should I Buy One? This power supply is everything you need for the majority of high-end gaming PC builds. Featuring huge power delivery, 1300W is more than enough power for the most extreme power supplies, or flagship graphics cards such as the RTX 4090 Ti, with power to spare on top, and native cable support thanks to 12VHPWR, PCIe 5.0, and ATX 3.0. From my own testing, this PSU easily exceeded 1300W and delivered 80 Plus Platinum efficiency, and exceptionally clean power delivery consistently. Sure, it's a bit more expensive than some other brands, but in this case, you really get what you pay for.