Testing:
A system with the components listed below was used to test the Tuniq Potency 650W power supply:
» ASUS P5E64 WS Evolution X48 ATX motherboard
» Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 dual core processor
» G.Skill 4GB DDR3-1600 Pi Series dual channel memory kit (at 1600MHz and 7-7-7-18)
» OCZ Technology Vendetta CPU cooler
» Maxtor MaxLine III 250GB SATA 3Gbps hard drive (Qty. 4)
» Sapphire Toxic 512MB HD3870 graphics card (Qty. 2)
» Sapphire Toxic 512MB HD4850 graphics card
» TSST Super WriteMaster SATA optical drive
For comparison purposes, it was tested against six other units with similar power ratings:
» Thermaltake Toughpower QFan 650W power supply
» BFG Tech LS-680 680W power supply
» Rosewill RX630-S-B 630 Watt power supply
» Nesteq EECS 700 Watt power supply
» Lian Li 750W Maxima Force Series power supply
» PC Power and Cooling 750 Quad Black power supply
All of the units are rated within the range of 630W-750W, and all offer modern features to efficiently power a modern system with multiple drives, multiple processing cores, and other high end gear.
All of the components listed above were used during idle testing, while load testing saw a Seasonic brand "Loader" connected, as well. The loader generates up to 148W on the 5V and 12V rails, increasing the system's demand greatly. The other equipment used during testing included a Radio Shack digital multimeter (Cat. No. 22-810) and a Seasonic Power Angel power monitor. Because there are only two PCI Express connections on this unit it was necessary to use an adaptor for one of the PCI Express connections on the video cards used.
For idle condition testing the system was allowed to sit at the Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit) desktop with nothing else running. For the load conditions, the Seasonic Loader was connected, Folding@Home was run on each of the CPU's cores, and 3DMark Vantage's first two tests were run at a resolution of 1680x1050. During load testing the two tests from 3DMark Vantage were executed over and over again, and the Seasonic loader was unplugged while 3DMark Vantage switched from one test to the other in order to keep it from overheating.
The first three charts analyze the 12V, 5V, and 3.3V DC rails of the seven power supplies over a thirty minute period while the system was run from the idle to the load condition described. A total of sixteen readings were taken at two minute intervals, with the first two readings in the idle condition, and the next fourteen readings in the load condition. The times are approximate, as load readings were not taken if 3DMark was in between load tests, and because only one rail could be read at a time. For example, I would connect to the 12V rail, wait for it to stabilize, take a reading, and then repeat the process on the 5V and 3.3V rail, making sure to get back to the 12V rail in about two minutes. The transition between graphics tests was generally just over a minute, and didn't delay any readings.
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