NZXT E850 850W Gold Rated Power Supply Review

Introduction NZXT E850 850W Gold Rated Power Supply NZXT is without a doubt one of the most fashionable names in computer designs and components. Perhaps best known for their chassis designs, their components speak of a quality design and strong bold presentation. When it comes to power supplies though, it can be a bit tricky making them fit in with the NZXT design. No matter how hard you try, it can be difficult trying to make power supplies look good. At least, not without risking the 'pig in make-up' effect. If anyone can pull this off though, it's NZXT. As such, we take a look at the brand new NZXT E850 power supply. Packing 850w at a reported gold efficiency, this power supply should be perfect for nearly any gaming or workhouse system. In addition, this fully-modular power supply is also provided to be compatible with CAM software which allows unique control over power management while providing you with a lot of information about your system. Everything suggests that this should be a pretty impressive power supply. Who are we to take that on face value though? Let's take a closer look to see whether the NZXT E850 can be your NZXT (see what I did there?) power supply! Features This NZXT E850 power supply comes with a single +12V rail which outputs the 840w through a single rail. This large power output on the single rail means that it should be a lot more stable and reliable when compared to multi-rail power supplies. In addition, the quantity is more than enough for the vast majority of gaming PC setups. Power indicators monitored and tracked through CAM software Delivers precise & stable voltage while ensuring optimal efficiency under load Silent operation with 0 RPM fan when operating under 100 watts All the essentials delivered by a modern PSU: complete protection and a fully modular design The power supply is also compatible with CAM software to allow for high levels of power management and information all via a handy desktop application. Specifications For in-depth specifications, please visit the official NZXT E850 power supply website in the link here! What NZXT Had to Say "The new E Series ATX power supplies from NZXT feature digital voltage and temperature monitoring so you get precise, real-time information about your PSU, including uptime, wattage by rail, and temperature. Store and track key data over time using CAM so you’ll always have an accurate picture of your PSU’s health. Manufactured with top-quality components and backed by a 10-year warranty, the E850 delivers both peace of mind and up to 850 watts of clean, reliable power to your multi-GPU gaming system." - NZXT Cabling 1 x 24-pin ATX power (length: 610 mm, Nylon sleeving) 2 x 4+4-pin CPU power (length: 650 mm, Nylon sleeving) 3 x PCIe (6+2 pin) (length: 675 +75 mm, Nylon sleeving) 2 x SATA (length: 500 + 100 +100 +100 mm) 2 x Peripherals (length: 500 + 100 +100 mm) 1 x Mini-USB (length: 600mm) The cabling for this power supply has a nice nylon sleeving which makes it both strong, but also flexible. As such, the movement and positioning is no issue here. NZXT even provide it within a fantastic case which should protect the cables you need as well as those you might need for another day or build! A Closer Look Packaging NZXT has established some fantastic brand recognition with its bold white and purple design. It's a branding that makes it stand out from the crowd and can clearly be seen on the packaging. The front of the NZXR E850 packaging is bright, bold and clear. While it is a little lacking in information on the front, you have to admire the strength of such marketing. They don't even have the gold-rated efficiency sticker on the front! Thankfully, for those of you who do need more in-depth information, the back of the packaging is not found wanting. You are provided with all the key information you could possibly need. This includes details on the power supply, the system requirements (largely for the CAM software), the product specifications as well as the details on the fan efficiency. Given that this is a gold rated power supply, it is a little strange why they chose to give the figures for the fan performance rather than for the efficiency. We will, of course, test efficiency and provide you with our own results to this regard later in the review. Power Supply and Accessories The power supply is provided inside a fantastic canvas covering. This is a great idea as ultimately it guarantees that it should not get scratched or marked during transmit. That doesn't mean to say that the NZXT E850 isn't well packaged in the first instance. Trust me, it is! This is, however, a nice touch that speaks volumes about a strong product and a branding that cares about presentation. The power supply itself is actually remarkably understated. Aside from the lightly embossed NZXT E850 to the sides, it would arguably be difficult to nail down exactly who had manufactured this power supply. Being understated is one thing, but at a glance this power supply is practically anonymous! Thankfully the underside of the power supply does give you some excellent information on the technical specification of the power supply. Specifically the gold rating and how it outputs the power across the difference voltage settings. I would note that the purple outline to this isn't necessary, but it is a nice touch that highlights and reinforces the NZXT brandings colour. Getting to the more technical level of the design, both the top and rear exhaust areas have nice large openings which should allow for some good air flow. As can be particularly seen on the back, very little room isn't utilised forexhauste vents and this should hopefully translate to some good fan speeds and running temperatures. Accessories In terms of accessories, the NZXT E850 doesn't give you much. Then again, it's not like you actually need much for a power supply, is it? You are provided with the fully-modular cables within a fantastically durable canvas bag which again sees the NZXT brand colouring. In addition to this, you are also provided with a product manual and warranty information. That's it. Nice and simple! A Closer Look Inside! De-lidding the NZXT E850 is a relatively simple process. Although you, of course, don't want to do this as it will invalidate your 10-year warranty. At an initial glance, everything looks good and exceptionally well designed considering that this is quite a compact power supply. It's particularly impressive given that this produces 850w of power. Let's take a closer look! A closer look at the interior electronics finds things are a little bit cramped. At the same time though, nearly every component is allowed a little breathing room. The heat syncs are a little smaller than we would usually expect to see and in addition, the one located to the side of the power supply may struggle to get a good flow of cool air. It isn't, after all, set very well in relation to the fan. We will, of course, see how this does in the testing, but from a design point of view, it's always prefereable to see the heat syncs more centralised. The main capacitor on the power supply is an HU design which is a branding owned by Hitachi. Given that the NZXT E850 claims to have 100% Japanese capacitors this is both confirmed and backed up in our photographs. Given that the main capacitor is rated to 105C as well, this is about as good as it gets or, at the very least, good news in terms of the products design and durability. Cooling Fan As you may already know, power supplies can get rather warm. It is, after all, dealing directly with the power and rather a lot of it too. As such, good cooling is a strong factor in any power supply. In this regard, the NZXT E850 power supply uses an 'Ong Hua' fan. I will admit that this isn't a well-known brand. It appears to either be of Chinese or Singapore manufacturing and that might raise a few concerns. That being said though, don't forget that this product, as a whole, is backed by NZXT's 10-year warranty. As such they clearly feel that every component in this power supply is good enough to last at least that length of time. What better assurances could you need? CAM Powered Management System The NZXT E850 power supply is fully compatible with their own designed CAM Powered software. This software has been designed to provide a complete management of NZXT powered systems. Overall, it can tell you everything you could want to know as well as be the managing hub for how your components perform and even overclock settings. Following a recent update to the software, we found it to be both highly informative as well as easy to use. It is, perhaps, best aimed towards those who like to micro-manage their systems. That being said though, even a beginner or 'regular' overclocker would find it informative and helpful if nothing else. "CAM is a free PC monitoring software created by NZXT for PC enthusiasts and gamers. In years past, users needed multiple apps to keep track of key components' temperatures, overclock GPUs, and display FPS in game. CAM has now consolidated all those functions into one easy-to-use utility for beginners and advanced users alike." - NZXT Cam You can download the CAM Powered Software in the link here! Important - Please Read To understand the results on the new few pages, please take the time to read our detailed testing methodology page. The next page of this review will help you understand what the results of our testing mean, and educate you on the various qualities we look for in a good PSU. Test Procedure 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 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") 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 selection Our 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/Silent 800 to 1000 RPM - Barely audible 1000 - 1200 RPM - Audible but still quiet 1200 - 1400 RPM - Moderately noisy 1400 - 1800 RPM - Noisy 1800 RPM or above - Intolerable Efficiency, PFC and Voltage Regulation Voltage Regulation Given that NZXT is such a well-known brand and that the E850 is gold rated, we expect some impressive figures from this power supply in our testing. Starting with the voltage regulation we are not disappointed. The 12V rail provides an almost solidly consistent power output across the entire range of testing. In this instance, the biggest variance we see if just 0.01 and that is remarkably impressive. In addition to this, the 3.3V and 5V figures are also exceptionally impressive. Overall, this power supply is rock solid in voltage regulation. Power Efficiency Given that the NZXT E850 is a gold rated power supply, it does have rather high standards to achieve in terms of power efficiency. In this regard, this power supply is not found wanting. The results across the multiple load tests gave excellent results making this comfortably within the gold standard. What is surprising is that at the highest and lowest output test, this power supply still managed to output at around 92% efficiency. This is much higher than it has to and at maximum load pushes this into the Platinum rated territory. Power Factor Correction Although the PFC rating starts quite low, as soon as you start making this power supply work it gets better and better. The chances are that any normal performance/gaming system is generally always going to run at about 40%-60% power output and as such, the results are exactly what you would want to see. It is a little surprising in that often PFC ratings can drop off a little at the higher levels. In this instance though, the more you ask, the better it does! Ripple The NZXT E850 has already shown that it can output its power in a highly efficient way. In terms of delivery though, is there a chink in the armour? The short answer is no. Across all voltages, the ripple results are both low and exactly what we would expect to see. The more power you apply, the slightest higher the figures get. We would, however, highlight the solidly consistent growth. This clearly indicates that the manner in which the power is outputted is solid and shouldn't ever cause any problems. Load (%) 3.3V Ripple 5V Ripple 12V Ripple 20 4.8 12 12.6 40 4.8 12.2 13.6 60 5.2 13.2 15.2 80 5.4 14.8 17.2 100 5.8 18.6 18.4 Over Power Protection and Max Wattage As the NZXT E850 is an 850w power supply, we already know that this has quite a lot of oomph behind it. It is always important though that if a power supply is pushed hard (or more accurately, too hard) that it has the protections in place to make sure it doesn't damage itself or any other components. In this test, the power supply gave excellent results. The OPP test found that this power supply was able to draw another 357 watts of power before it's protections kicked in. When you consider that this is 42% higher than the base amount, there's no reason to suggest that this power supply couldn't handle 1000 watts when asked without any problems. Fan Speed We should note that when we were conducting the fan speed test, we were experiencing much higher than usual ambient temperatures. While we can compensate for this in the temperature test, we, unfortunately, cannot in terms of fan speeds. As such, the fan was likely having to work a lot harder than it usually would. Despite this though, the results are still good and remarkably consistent to those advertised by NZXT on the packaging. They are almost exactly the same. While we did not find that the fan would stop running at low output (likely due to the higher ambient temperature), the remaining results are entirely consistent with those advertised and what we would expect. At maximum speed, the fan is also remarkably quiet so noise should definitely not be a factor in this power supply. Final Thoughts Pricing Although the NZXT is not currently retailing in the UK, their official website indicates a price of $149.99. In Stirling that is around £115. For a gold-rated power supply that is definitely towards the lower end of the scale of price. Yes, spending over £100 for a power supply might seem a bit mad to some, but it really shouldn't. A power supply is one of the few components in a system where if you go cheap, you can risk a lot of collateral damage. For £115, the NZXT E850 is clearly a solid performer. With its gold rating confirmed and the 10-year warranty attached, this power supply is not a purchase, it's an investment! Overview NZXT has spent many years building a solid reputation for providing an excellent product both in terms of aesthetics and design. When it comes to power supplies though, it can be tricky hitting the former. Despite that though, everything is excellently presented and the internals appears to be excellently designed. Some compromises have clearly been made to ensure its rather compact design, but overall this power supply is near faultless. Efficiency and Beyond The test results for the NZXT E850 speak for themselves. This is a fantastically strong performer. It more than meets the requirements for its gold-rating and at times even pushes into platinum territory. Across all test ranges, all the results are highly positive and this power supply has no apparent flaws. It's near perfect in doing exactly what it says it will and even giving you a whole lot more extra! What more could you want from a power supply? Should I Buy One? It's not as if you would struggle to find a power supply for your system. There are literally loads of them. Each of which with different manufacturers, wattage outputs and efficiency ratings. So why should you pick the NZXT E850? Well, firstly, it has more than enough power for the vast majority of gaming systems and as our test results showed, it outputs this with both excellent efficiency and solid transfer levels. Secondly, the compact design works perfectly with NZXT's branding. Thirdly, the CAM software provides an excellent option for those particularly working towards an NZXT based system build. When you consider that this is a gold-rated power supply (that touches on platinum territory) and it also has a 10-year warranty, it's hard to find anything to fault with this. In addition to this, for a fully modular power supply at 850w, this is definitely priced towards the lower end. When you consider all of these factors and, of course, the highly fashionable NZXT branding, you could choose another power supply, but it's hard to think why you would!