Final Thoughts
Pricing
The XFR is certainly a competitive unit, with many retailers in the UK listing them for around £65, this is a very good price for a unit of this quality and the confidence you get from it having a 5-year warranty only helps sweeten the deal even further. Readers in the US can pick up the unit for $89.99.
Conclusion
This isn’t the greatest PSU in the world, it is after all only a mid-to-high end unit, targeted at the bulk of PC gaming consumers. Typically, I would recommend this unit for someone running a single powerful GPU, but there’s no doubt a few crossfire or SLI configurations that aren’t too power hungry that would be just as happy with it, especially with many newer cards offering very efficient power designs.
Build quality is premium throughout, despite the affordable price tag. This is what I would have expected from a unit made by Seasonic, as they didn’t come one of the best in the industry by turning out cheap units. Everything from the flat all black and fully modular cables, to the detail of the soldering on the internal PCBs, it’s all super neat and tidy and I doubt many people will need to exercise that 5-year warranty.
The hybrid fan mode is a welcome addition, as it does slow the fan right down and even stop it in very low load scenarios, giving you perfectly silent performance when you’re doing simple day to day tasks such as browsing the web. When you’re gaming the PSU will obviously spin the fan up and keep it cool and while it did get a little noisy at 100% load, it’s unlikely you’ll be putting that amount of strain on the unit often, if you are, you need a higher wattage PSU.
80 Plus Gold efficiency is a good standard to aim for, it gives you a good amount of savings in terms of electricity costs, without having to make too much investment on the cost of the PSU, as you would with Platinum or Titanium rated units. The efficiency is certainly a by-product of the high-quality components used and overall, this would make a great PSU for many system builders or those looking to upgrade an older unit.
Pros
- Good efficiency
- Fully modular design
- Flat all-black cables
- Excellent PFC
- Good voltage regulation
- Low ripple
- 5-year warranty
- Exceptional build quality
Cons
- High fan speed at 100% load
- Hybrid fan mode doesn’t make a huge impact on fan speeds
“The XFX XTR 550W Power Supply offers excellent build quality, matched with clean and stable power that makes it an ideal choice for many system builders. The competitive price and 5-year warranty “
Thank you XFX for providing this review sample.
