SuperFlower Leadex Platinum 750W & Titanium 1000W Review

Introduction & Packaging SuperFlower is one of the leading names in the PSU market, with a wide range of products that cater to a wide range of budgets, although their specialty certainly seems to be in the high-end market, where they offer an impressive range, both in terms of aesthetics and performance for the enthusiast and prosumer markets. Today, I'll be taking a look at not one, but two of the latest SuperFlower power supplies; the Platinum rated 750W and the Titanium rated 1000W. Platinum and Titanium rated efficiencies are both very impressive, especially given that many consumers rarely shop above 80Plus Gold. The end result from these higher ratings is that the PSUs should be extremely efficient and could potentially save you some money on your electricity bill in the long run; which is no bad thing. This isn't a head-to-head "which is best" review, as they're both spec'd to have their own strength, one for the usual high-end user, the other is aimed a little more at the enthusiast side, so it'll be interesting to see if spending that bit extra is really worth it overall. Packaging and Contents - Leadex Platinum 750W First up we have the 750W Platinum, which comes nicely packaged in a rather eye-catching box. Around the back, we have a quick run down of all the major features; we'll take a closer look at those in a moment. In the box, you'll find all the usual bits first; power cable, owners manual and some chassis mounting screws. A Closer Look - Leadex Platinum 750W Exterior Power Supply Unit The PSU is very nicely designed and from taking it out of the box, it's immediately apparent that this is a high-quality product. The top fan grill is really nicely designed and while it serves a functional purpose for airflow, it's going to look great in your system too. The SuperFlower logo is embossed onto the side, further enhancing the overall aesthetics. Down the side, you can see the core specifications of the PSU, which has a powerful 62.4A +12V rail, so it should be great for those running a Crossfire/SLI graphics configuration. A smooth bottom panel, just that nicely finished black paintwork. Around the back, you'll find some very nicely finished connectors which are LED backlit for some extra flair. There's also a small switch for Auto/Eco mode to control the fan cooling system. Lots of ventilation at the back, as well as the master power switch and standard 3-pin power connector. Cabling The included cables are fully modular and come with black cables, the thickest of which are braided for extra protection. The other thing you'll notice is that the power connectors are colour coded, with clear plastic on the PSU end of each, red on the motherboard 4+4 cables and red on the PCIe cables. A Closer Look - Leadex Platinum 750W Interior The internals are very neat and tidy, with a black-coated PCB and virtually no trailing wires or fittings, which should help greatly with airflow. There's a single main bulk capacitor in this unit, which is rated for 400v, 680uF at up to 105C. Tidy wiring and soldering on the EMC/EMI filter for the AC socket. A small PCB at the front for the fan speed controller. Six high-quality secondary output capacitors are located near the power connectors, and you'll find another five located throughout the PSU. The pre-installed fan is 135mm PWM and a seven-blade design to help maximise airflow. Packaging and Contents - Leadex Titanium 1000W Next up, we have the 1000W Titanium rated unit, which comes in a similarly designed box to its lower output sibling. All the main features are detailed on the box, handy for those picking on up at retail. The PSU comes with the power cable, fitting screws, owners manual and a protective bag to help keep it free from scratches when stored away. A Closer Look - Leadex Titanium 1000W Exterior Power Supply Unit As with the other model, this is a really nicely designed unit and it's immediately apparent that it's a premium quality product in terms of how it looks and feels. A large fan intake on the top, with a durable cut-out design and the SuperFlower logo in the center. An embossed SuperFlower logo on the side. There's no doubt that this PSU packs a mighty punch, with a whopping 83.3A on the +12V rail. There is a huge range of connectors available, with a split 24 pin for the motherboard, five SATA/Peripheral connectors, two 8-pin CPU connectors and a whopping six 8-pin PCI-E connectors; perfect for multi-GPU configurations. In the bottom corner, you'll also notice a small auto/eco switch for configuring the fan cooling mode. Lots of ventilation around the back that runs virtually edge to edge, as well as the master power switch. Cabling A vast array of jet-black cables is included in the box, giving you everything you're likely to need to hook up all your components. The all-black design also means that cable management and visuals should look great and blend into any system build with ease. A Closer Look - Leadex Titanium 1000W Interior Another sign that this is an enthusiast product is the pristine build quality on the interior of the PSU, with virtually no excess cables or fittings in sight. You'll find three bulk capacitors in this unit, two rated at 400v, 390 uF and 105c and the other at 400v, 330uF and 105c. Immaculate soldering on the EMC/EMI filtering for the AC port. A smaller PCB is used for the fan control and monitoring systems, with a small fan header near the top (fan currently removed). All of the secondary output capacitors are of the highest quality and will provide more than enough power for that vast array of connectors. The fan is a seven-blade PWM 140mm ball-bearing design. 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. Our test machinery is as follows: Sunmoon SM-5500ATE Active Load Tester (1200W rated) Stingray DS1M12 USB Oscilloscope Voltcraft DT-10L laser tachometer The eTeknix test procedure involves: Testing each power supply at 20/40/60/80/100% load (with balanced load 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 are that We recognise that a single yellow 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 Efficiency, PFC and Voltage Regulation - Leadex Platinum 750W 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. Due to the limitations of our load tester, we had to split the 12v rail across multiple "simulated" rails. The results here are pretty incredible, with very little deviance from the rated specifications, 12V1 was around 1% off, as was the -12V and 12V2, but these are still very tight and consistent figures overall. 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 230v power supplies. Power Efficiency is very good overall, but in our tests, it fell just a little short of the Platinum rating, yet exceeding that of the Gold rating, for the most part. 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). PFC was very good overall, especially from 60% load and above. Ripple - Leadex Platinum 750W 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. Load (%) 3.3V Ripple 5V Ripple 12V Ripple 20 3 3.6 6.4 40 3.2 4.2 7.4 60 4 4.8 9.2 80 4.2 5.4 10 100 4.8 6 9.8 Ripple performance is well above average here, with tight regulation across the board and well within what I would call a safe margin. 3.3 volt @ 100% 5 volt @ 100% 12 volt @ 100% Over Power Protection and Max Wattage - Leadex Platinum 750W 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 blew up). 750W is more than enough power for a high-end gaming system, but with a little overclocking or benchmarking, it can be easy to exceed your PSUs rating, if only for a short while. Fortunately, this unit topped 1000W without any issues and didn't cut out until 1051W. Fan Speed - Leadex Platinum 750W 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 higher - Intolerable In stock mode, the PSU was very quiet up until it hit 80% load, something you're not likely to do particular often, but even then it wasn't unreasonably loud. With Eco mode enabled, the unit ran passive cooled all the way to 60% and was completely silent. Even at 80%+ load the PSU remained barely audible with Eco mode enabled, which is very impressive! Efficiency, PFC and Voltage Regulation - Leadex Titanium 1000W 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. Due to the limitations of our load tester, we had to split the 12v rail across multiple "simulated" rails. Power output on this unit is stunning, very tight regulation for the most part, with just the 5VSB being 1.44% high, but still fairly consistent results regardless. 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 230v power supplies. The 1000W Titanium rating performed spectacularly in this test, exceeding the rating in most load scenarios, with only the 80% load dropping 0.8% below spec. 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). PFC was incredible on this unit, some of the best scores I've ever seen! Ripple - Leadex Titanium 1000W 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. Load (%) 3.3V Ripple 5V Ripple 12V Ripple 20 4.6 5.4 8 40 7.4 7.6 10.4 60 11 10.2 10.6 80 15.6 14 12.4 100 16.6 17.2 13.4 It's near impossible to find a PSU these days that fail this test and the 1000W unit I'm testing today passes with ease; we've seen better performance, but it's certainly not bad either. 3.3 volt @ 100% 5 volt @ 100% 12 volt @ 100% Over Power Protection and Max Wattage - Leadex Titanium 1000W 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 blew up). This being a 1000W unit, it's likely to be put under a lot of stress in multi GPU configurations and benchmark focused systems. When benchmarking and running extreme overclocks, it's not uncommon to exceed the PSU power rating and the good news is, we got this unit to run over 50% higher than its rated output! Fan Speed - Leadex Titanium 1000W 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 higher - Intolerable The fan noise at 100% load was certainly noticeable, but certainly not at the point where we would be reaching for ear plugs, yet Eco mode simply blew me away, with barely audible performance all the way to 100% load and completely silent passive cooling up to 60% load. Final Thoughts Pricing The SuperFlower Leadex Platinum 750W is available from Overclockers UK for £102.95 and the SuperFlower Leadex Titanium 1000W is also available from Overclockers UK for £199.99. There's no doubt that these are expensive power supplies, but if you want some of the best units money can buy, expect to pay a premium. The 750W unit is competitive, with the price being +/- £10 from rival models. The 1000W is a big investment, but you're not going to see many other Titanium rated units for it to compete against. Conclusion Both of these power supplies are absolutely stunning and without a doubt, they both made a prime example of why people hold SuperFlower in such high regard. Their performance is fantastic across all of our tests and from your high-end consumer to the enthusiast crowd, anyone will find a lot to love about these units. Without a doubt, the 1000W unit is the best performer here, with tight voltage regulation, the capability to hit a peak wattage of over 1500W and features such as the 6 PCI-E 8-pin connectors are going to make this great for overclockers and users of triple GPU configurations. The 750W is great value for money, offering reliable performance at a competitive price. The efficiency rating fell a little short of the listed specifications, but still exceeded that of the 80 Plus Gold rating. This does make it seem like worse value for money, but the build quality, general performance, aesthetics from those nice cables and LED connectors and more add up to a whole lot of value in my opinion and you would be very happy to have one of these units in your system build. SuperFlower really knows how to build a great looking power supply and that's something that can be seen inside and out of both these units. The external design looks superb, especially when it comes to the cable connectors and fan grille. The internal hardware is immaculate, some of the best I've ever seen and that really reflects well on my confidence that these units were built with a lot of care and will last a long time. Pros Great aesthetics Flawless build quality High-quality cables and connectors Standard/Eco mode switch Silent performance until 60% load (Eco mode) Excellent OPP performance Good ripple suppression Excellent efficiency rating (1000w) LED lighting in connectors (750W) Cons Slightly below rated efficiency (750W) Neutral 1000W unit is expensive, but that's the premium you can expect to pay for Titanium levels of efficiency. "From high-end gaming systems to enthusiast overclocking, the latest SuperFlower power supplies have got you covered. Excellent build quality and performance go a long way to justify their premium prices and they'll make a great addition to any system." Thank you Overclockers UK for providing this review sample.