XFX 650 W XXX Edition Power Supply Review

Conclusions

XFX 650 W XXX Edition is a very good power supply, being capable of delivering its labeled wattage at high temperatures, keeping high efficiency if you pull up to 80% of its labeled capacity (i.e., up to 520 W), a three percent voltage regulation (as opposed of 5% as defined on the ATX specification – translation: voltages closer to their nominal values than required), low noise and ripple levels, modular cabling system and a single-rail design.

Another nice feature is the presence of four connectors for video cards, allowing you to install two video cards that require two power connectors each. Some 650 W power supplies from other manufacturers have only two of them, and some users only discover this when it is too late (i.e., after buying a second video card and trying to install it).

It presents a good value for the average Joe, especially if you can get the USD 30 mail-in rebate being offered at Newegg.com, making this unit to cost only USD 100 (Newegg.com is also giving a discount of USD 55 or USD 60 if you buy this unit together with a Radeon HD 5870 or HD 5850 from XFX, respectively). And the five-year warranty certainly counts positive points towards this unit.

When we opened this power supply and saw that the printed circuit board was from PC Power & Cooling Silencer EPS12V series, we thought that this unit could be a relabeled Silencer 610 with a modular cabling system added, but our suspicion didn’t hold true: this 650 W unit uses rectifiers with greater current limits on the secondary, plus more powerful transistors on the active PFC circuit.