INTRODUCTION

   Recent storms in the town where i live (not of a very large scale but just enough to break trees and move cars) have not only caused damage to civilian property such as houses and cars but they have also damaged the local electricity grid which as a result has rendered many electrical and electronic devices inoperable. Now normally i don't care about those things since I’ve taken steps to secure everything at my place even during such incidents but a friend of mine did call the other day asking if i had a new PSU which i could give him because his old 550W didn't make it through the night (this could had been avoided of course had he unplugged his PC from the power outlet during the storm). This is only one of the reasons as to why a quality PSU is always a good investment (especially if your system is considered good) and although this might not had made a difference during the storm still i do believe that it would have a much better chance of making it through without issue. Regardless todays review is about one of the latest and best power supply models to hit the market the Aurum PT 1200W by FSP (Fortron Group).

   FSP Group is the 5th largest power supply vendor in the world. Since the company was established in 1993, our outstanding management team has drawn together our R&D expertise, our sizeable production capacity, outstanding product quality to consistently excel in this competitive marketplace. FSP group is a publicly traded company listed in the Taiwan stock exchange, symbol: 30.15.TW, with revenues exceeding over 600 million USD. FSP group provides OEM/ODM power conversion products and services to the majority of well-established manufacturers and is the leading volume supplier of desktop PC ATX power supplies. In recent years, FSP group has expanded its R&D and manufacturing capabilities to become one of the major power conversion supplier of power adapters, industrial PCs, servers, LCD/LED monitors, LCD/LED TVs, heavy duty industrial products (UPS), portable battery chargers, Uninterrupted Power Supply as well as providing off-the-shelf consumer products, partnering with many strategic manufacturers.

   The Aurum PT 1200W by FSP (also available in 850W and 1000W) is a fully modular 80PLUS Platinum certified power supply unit (over 92% efficiency) that features a powerful single 12V+ rail capable of using its entire output of 1200W (with 100A), active PFC, "E-Sync" Remote-Sensing technology, Japanese made capacitors, 8 PCI-E 6+2 pin power connectors, 13 SATA connectors, 135mm fluid dynamic bearing fan and a full range of industrial grade protections such as the over current protection (OCP), over voltage protection (OVP), under voltage protection (UVP), short circuit protection (SCP), over power protection (OPP) and over temperature protection (OTP). FSP also covers the entire Aurum PT line with a 7 year warranty (one of the longest we've seen in the industry) and an remarkable 5 million USD in product insurance (in case your system burns out while plugged into the Aurum PT) but what really stands-out is their E-Sync Remote-Sensing technology for which we were unable to find much information on even at the conclusion of this review. Still what matters is whether or not it works so let’s see what the brand new Aurum PT 1200W by FSP can do.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

The box is painted black and silver (from the Platinum certification no doubt) and at the front it has part of the Aurum PT as background along with the FSP and warranty logos, main features list, Intel Haswell support logo and the power output.

A line at the bottom of the box (printed in 25 languages) directs you to the official FSP website for more information regarding the Aurum PT line.

At the rear of the box we find the electrical table, two charts pointing to efficiency and noise, all of the available connectors and a complete listing of the product features and specifications.

The PSU is sandwiched between two foam spacers while the modular cables and placed in a cloth pouch.

Inside the box you will find the Aurum PT 1200W body, modular cables, AC power cable, carrying/storage pouch, 5 cable ties, 4 mounting thumb screws and the user manual.

THE AURUM PT 1200W EXTERIOR

The Aurum PT 1200W measures 190mm in length, 150mm in width and 86mm in height and features a nice grey scratch-resistant paint.

The FSP logo is embossed on both sides of the chassis but unfortunately it's not easy to see (can't really spot it in the picture).

FSP has placed a nice hexagon grille above the 135mm fan.

The electrical table is printed on a medium sized sticker at the bottom of the PSU.

All of the modular connectors are tagged (sticker) and different in shape to avoid any unpleasant incidents.

As usual the rear of the PSU is perforated but instead of the typical honeycomb design FSP has used arrow-like design to shift the airflow direction upwards. The power on/off switch and the AC connector are also present.

THE AURUM PT 1200W INTERIOR

The fan used is actually a 135mm fluid dynamic bearing model which can spin up to 2000RPM (+-10%) to produce up to 111.1CFM of airflow with 41.6dBA of noise.

As expected from a 1200W PSU the interior is a little cramped (here we see the usual full-bridge topology and DC to DC converters).

Our sample used primary capacitors manufactured by Nippon Chemi-Con and secondary capacitors manufactured by United Chemi-Con (all are rated for use up to 105 degrees Celsius).

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 computer. Certainly limitations do apply and so you can't really test a 1000W power supply if your system only uses 500W at peak loads and that's why during the past 5 years i have 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 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). 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.

TEST RESULTS

RAIL STABILITY

Rock solid rail stability is something we expect from every 1000W+ PSU out there and the Aurum PT 1200W certainly didn’t disappoint since it passed this test with flying colors.

POWER CONSUMPTION

Once again our test rig fell short in maximizing the output of the PSU at hand (as with every other 1200W+ model we’ve ever tested). Still 1034W at peak is certainly a good enough number to provide valid results.

NOISE LEVELS (SPL)

44.7dBA is excellent but if you manage to push the unit even higher than 1034W you should expect that number to climb (even just slightly).

CONCLUSION

   Releasing an 1200W 80 Plus Platinum certified PSU was just a matter of time for FSP since you just can't be one of the top 5 largest PSU vendors in the world and not have something that can take on the competition. FSP has been around longer than most PSU manufacturers however so although our last encounter with one of their models was roughly 3 years ago we had no doubt that the Aurum PT 1200W model would be excellent and it is both in terms of build quality and rail stability. True we have seen slightly better rail stability from similar wattage PSUs but nobody's saying that the Aurum PT 1200W is the best model currently in the market (it's certainly one of the best ones however). Noise levels are also very low at load not to mention that the unit is basically inaudible at idle and although this isn't something new still it adds to the overall quality/performance of the unit.

   By releasing the Aurum PT 1200W power supply unit not only does FSP have a top-notch product which can compete with other similar ones in the market but they also have a product which doesn't have much competition in terms of cost since with a current price tag of USD239.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and around 230Euros inside the EU you will have a hard time finding something similar (Seasonic is perhaps the only company that does offer something similar at around the same price point). Of course as mentioned earlier the Aurum PT 1200W is by no means the best available model in the market but the 80PLUS Platinum certification, rock solid rail stability, available power connectors (can power up to 4 graphics cards and 13 drives), very tempting price tag and the 7 years warranty (along with the 5 million USD product insurance) are more than enough for our Platinum Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Design
- Rock Solid Rail Stability
- 7 Years Warranty (Plus 5 Million USD Product Insurance)
- 80Plus Platinum Certified
- Fully Modular
- Electrical Protections (OCP/OVP/UVP/OPP/SCP/OTP)
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- None