INTRODUCTION

    Roughly 2 months away from the Christmas holidays and with all the announcements by AMD, Intel and NVIDIA (some already delivered, some by January) it's a safe bet that soon enough many people all over the world will either be building new systems or upgrading their old ones. So, it's no wonder that many manufacturers are ramping up production of new models and with power supply units taking the center stage whenever new graphics cards are involved, we've actually seen quite a few such unveilings lately. One of them is no other than the V4 version of Seasonics award winning FOCUS GX line of power supply units and today with me I have the 850W output model.

    Sea Sonic Electronics Co., Ltd was founded more than 40 years ago by engineers. Since its early beginnings the company has rigorously maintained its focus on the research, development and production of technologically advanced, high quality products. In 1981 Sea Sonic expanded into the production of PC power supplies to become one of the first manufacturers in this market. Soon after, the manufacturing of high quality and performance PC power supplies became the core identity of Sea Sonic.

   As its name clearly states the FOCUS GX V4 is the 4th line to carry that name and even though the previous model was released last year Seasonic decided to further improve it and well, they have. So once again the FOCUS GX line of ATX 3.1 & PCIe 5.1 compliant power supply units includes 3 different output models (750/850/1000W )available in 2 different colors (black and white) all of which are fully modular and sport the 80 PLUS Gold certification (up to 92% electrical efficiency). The new FOCUS GX-850 which I have here with me today is equipped with one of the new 12V-2X6 power connectors (600W), three 6+2 pin PCIe power connectors, single strong +12V rail (70A) capable of delivering roughly 97% of the units’ total power output (840W) and a peak power output of no less than 968W (peak should now be up to around 1.93KW for up to 100ms - once again however this is not something I can test). The biggest update of the new FOCUS GX line is of course the OptiSink technology Seasonic has used which basically delivers better heat dissipation (up to 8 times better) by using automated surface mount technology to install smaller MOSFET and heatsinks onto a newly designed PCB (this results in higher reliability and lower costs). Needless to say the FOCUS GX-850 also sports full-bridge LLC with DC to DC design, active PFC, digital hybrid fan control (3 modes for the internal 135mm fan - fanless, silent and cooling), high-quality Japanese capacitors certified for use up to 105 degrees Celsius and a full array of electrical protections including over-current (OCP), over-voltage (OVP), under-voltage (UVP), short-circuit (SCP), over-temperature (OTP) and over-power (OPP). Finally, Seasonic once again covers their FOCUS GX line with a rather generous 10-year limited warranty.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

Seasonic uses a yellow and black box to ship the new FOCUS GX V4 series at the front of which we see their logo, model name and some of the main features.

The electrical table along with available power cables are printed on the left side.

Moving at the rear we find an efficiency graph, detailed descriptions for all features and a small product picture.

All product features can also be found at the base of the box in 11 languages.

The power supply unit is wrapped inside a synthetic bag and placed between two foam spacers whereas the rest of the bundle is placed under a cardboard cover.

Along with the FOCUS GX-850 V4 power supply unit and its power cord inside the box you'll also find the modular power cables (again, placed inside a synthetic bag), 12 cable ties, 3 cable straps, PSU tester, 5 mounting screws, steam eGift sweepstakes card, installation guide and the user manual.

THE FOCUS GX-850 V4 EXTERIOR

The V4 version of the FOCUS GX series comes with the latest 12V-2X6 power connector.

Measuring just 150mm in length, 140mm in width and 86mm in height the FOCUS GX-850 V4 is a somewhat small power supply unit.

Just like with its predecessor the GX-850 V4 uses an 135mm fan.

Both the company and model names are printed on the sides.

Typically, at the base of the enclosure we find the electrical table.

At the front of the enclosure, we find 11 modular ports all of which are tagged.

Moving at the rear we find the company logo, hybrid fan mode button, on/off power switch and the power port.

THE FOCUS GX-850 V4 INTERIOR

Once again Ong Hua (Honghua Electronic Technology) is the manufacturer behind the high-speed (2000RPM) 135mm fan.

Very clean design for such a small enclosure, just what we'd expect from Seasonic.

Here you can see the PCB with the MOSFET and heatsinks manufactured with their OptiSink technology.

The primary capacitor is manufactured by the Japanese Nippon Chemi-Con and is certified for use up to 105 degrees Celsius.

Secondary capacitors are manufactured by both Nippon Chemi-Con (KZE series) and Rubycon (YXG series) and are also certified for use up to 105 degrees.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

     Using a dedicated measurement instrument such as a Chroma or a SunMoon to test power supply units is without doubt the most ideal and accurate way (not to mention the fastest) to do that currently. However, it's certainly not the only way there is and so pretty much anyone can test a power supply unit just by using a test rig. Certainly, limitations do apply and so you can't really push a 1000W power supply to its limits if your system only uses 500W at peak loads and that's why over the years we saved certain hardware components for the purpose of building a dedicated PSU test rig. True it may not be as accurate as the above mentioned solutions, but it comes really close and is in fact much closer to real world usage. So as always, we ran several games with maximum graphic options enabled at a resolution of 2560x1600 in order to stress every hardware component and increase the overall power demands of the system. The Passmark BurnIn Test was also used to overstress the components in an effort to provide the most accurate results possible. As a final test we also used the latest OCCT 4.4 software and its dedicated PSU testing suite since it can really bring a power supply to its knees after inside a few minutes.

   Rail stability was checked/measured with the CPUID Hardware monitor and a Metex multimeter which also recorded the system load in idle and in load. As always try to remember that the power consumption numbers listed in the graph are the highest (Peak) ones recorded during the entire duration of the tests and not the average ones. Noise levels coming from the fan were recorded using the high precision HD600 ExTech Sound dBA Meter from the rear of the unit and at a range of no more than 5-10cm. Readings under load are recorded the exact moment we manually switch the fans of all graphics cards from full speed to almost zero, that way the fan of the power supply does not have enough time to slow its RPM and so by doing this we get very accurate noise level readings. Needless to say, in order to get 100% accurate readings, you need to have a noise isolated room for that exact purpose, something which is quite impossible unless you are working inside a real lab (some people use very small noise insulated boxes but due to their size both heat and noise exceed normal levels and so the results can't really be considered to be 100% accurate, nor realistic for that matter). Also do take into account that since all noise measurements take place from just 5-10cm away the final noise levels to reach your ears will be considerably less.

* After well over 10 years of testing PSUs the Intel Core i7-920 CPU of this rig failed and so we replaced it with a Xeon X5660 (we also swapped the GA-X58A-UD7 for the G1. Assassin).

TEST RESULTS

CONCLUSION

    When Seasonic reached out to tell me that they were updating their FOCUS GX line roughly a year since the last update I was somewhat surprised. I knew that they planned on changing the 12VHPWR connector to the new 12V-2X6 one but that shouldn’t be enough to re-launch the same model. Well, in the end the new model is also ATX 3.1 & PCIe 5.1 compliant and on top of that the new OptiSink technology looks interesting. Can’t really comment on quality (OptiSink should improve on that since it eliminates human error) but reduced temperatures is obviously something I welcome with open arms. As for performance not much I can say, rail stability is near superb and as for noise levels they are considerably less compared to its predecessor (obviously due to the lower RPM fan used thanks to the OptiSink technology).

    The FOCUS GX V4 line of power supply units by Seasonic just started making its appearance in the EU and currently the GX-850 V4 model retails for around 150Euros, a price tag which is very balanced for such a unit. As always Seasonic has designed and manufactured yet another high-performance and quality power supply unit which clearly deserves the Golden Award.

PROS

- Very Good Build Quality
- Rock Solid Rail Stability
- ATX 3.1 & PCIe 5.1 Compliant
- 12V2X6 600W Connector
- Strong Single Rail (70A)
- 80 PLUS Gold Certified
- Electrical Protections (OCP/OVP/OPP/UVP/SCP/OTP)
- Low Noise Levels
- Hybrid Fan Mode
- Available In Black & White Colors
- 10 Year Limited Warranty

CONS

- Current Availability (Should Improve Soon)