Testing

Test Rig

Big thank you to CryoPC for providing the following test rig:

CPU: Core i5 750 @ 4GHZ
Motherboard: Asus P7P55D-E
GPU: Sapphire 5850 1GB
RAM: Corsair Dominator 4GB PC3-12800 DDR3
Storage: Samsung F3 500GB 16MB
CASE: NZXT Hades

Methodology

Here at XSReviews, we don’t have the money for a full test bench when it comes to PSUs. Load testers cost thousands of pounds which unfortunately we just don’t have. Because of this, we don’t pretend to test the rail stability or efficiency of a PSU, as we simply can’t do it effectively.

However, what we can do is test the Ripple/Noise quality of each rail using an oscilloscope. The one used was USB Instruments Stingray DS1M12 using HP 3060 probes and also in line with ATX specifications, I used 10uF and 0.1uF capacitors to simulate added load.

Noise and Ripple

The last PSU review I did included a pretty good explanation of Noise/Ripple, so if you don’t mind I’ll just reproduce that here instead of rewriting it:

“So what is noise and ripple? This is the description of minute voltage fluctuations on each of the main rails in any PSU. In a nutshell, the good power supplies have very little, the awful ones fluctuate a lot. According to ATX Specifications, there shouldn’t be more than 120mv in peak to peak voltage fluctuation on the 12v rails, and no more than 50mv on the 5v and 3.3v rails. These are the theoretical maximums, with good PSUs hitting somewhere under half, so 60mv and 25mv respectively.

If noise and ripple are present in abundance, you’re most likely going to find it at full load. Not posessing a load tester, the best I was able to do was to load up Furmark and WPRIME to max out the test rig. This ended up drawing 414w from the mains. This will likely equate to nearly 10% less used by the PSU because no power supply is 100% efficient. All we have to go on here is the 80 PLUS Gold rating of the PSU, which under 50%  load conditions should be around 92%.

All images are of the average fluctuations. Not posessing a hot box to ensure that the unit is tested under stressfully heated conditions, air intakes and exhausts were partially covered. The internal temperature of the PSU was then measured using a probe, with results taken when it reached 40 degrees centigrade.”

Since I used the .01v scale, each line on the graph represents 0.02v, or 20mv.

Numbers on the left of each image to take note of are the bottom peak to peak frequency results.

3.3v

5v

12VA

12VB

All results were below half the threshold, so no problems with this PSU.

Conclusion

Of course this is far from a full testing suite as we can’t make any claims on the efficiency or overload ability of this PSU. However, we can confirm that it’s safe for use.

The Aurum isn’t a bad looking unit either, and handled the test rig without any difficulty. It’s not the quietest PSU I’ve ever used, but it was far from noisey. I’d be more than happy to have this in my PC.

The price isn’t too bad either. £100 means this isn’t cheap by far, but it’s a long shot from the last mid-range wattage unit that we reviewed. Almost half price!

Pros

• Passes noise/ripple test
• Unique styling
• Good quality cables
• Quiet
• High efficiency

Cons

• A bit expensive
• Gold is a bit gaudy