Testing
As I explained before, I do not have the specialized equipment for PSU testing (which costs thousands of dollars). So the best way I could do test the PSU is by using what we’ve got. My testing method involves comparing the voltage and power consumption reading during idle and at full load. I know it’s not the most accurate method technically, but I think this simple method should provide some ideas of the performance of the power supply in terms of stability and power consumption.
The main thing to watch out for, is the fluctuation on the +12V line. If the +12V line drops to below 11.5V during full load … then you’ve got trouble. The system may become unstable and you might also get random reboots.
For our tests, we used our current test rig which is comprised of an Asus Maximus Hero IX motherboard, along with an overclocked Intel Core i5-7600K at 3.8GHz, as well as 16GB of G.Skill DDR4-3200 ram in dual channel mode.
We used AIDA64 and simultaneously ran both CPU and GPU stress test which produces 100% load. We then checked the voltage readings on AIDA64 and HWinfo64. A power meter was used to record the peak power consumption of the system.
| CPU | Intel Core i5-7600K @3.8GHz (Boost @ 4.2GHz) |
| Overclocked | @ 4.6GHz |
| Cooling | Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 240 AIO Cooler |
| Motherboard | Asus Maximus Hero IX (Z270) |
| Ram | 16GB G.Skill Trident DDR4-3200 |
| HDD | Crucial MX300 SSD – 750GB |
| PSU | Corsair RM650x PSU – 650W |
| VGA card | Inno3D GeForce GTX 1070 x4 (8GB GDDR5) |
| Nvidia Drivers | Version 381.89 WHQL |
| OS | Windows 10 |
Voltages at Idle
Voltage readings taken from ADIA64
- +12V : 12.096V
- +5V : 5.040V
- +3V : 3.36V
Everything looks normal here. All voltage readings are pretty healthy and nothing to out of the ordinary.
Voltages at Full Load
Voltage readings taken from ADIA64
- +12V : 12.00V (-0.096V)
- +5V : 5.040V (no change)
- +3V : 3.36V (no change)
Interestingly, there was no change for both the +5V and +3.3V . Only the +12V rail dropped a tiny bit from +12.096V (idle) to smack-on +12.00V (load) … a difference of only -0.096V . What you’re looking for is to make sure that the +12V reading don’t drop to below 11.5V. If it does, then the system may become unstable.
The Corsair RM650x is holding up quite well with voltages on the +12V rail dead-on 12.00V, and it did not drop one bit!
Power consumption at full load peaked to 220.5W, which I thought was surprisingly low considering we have an overclocked Intel Core i5-7600K @ 4.6GHz, along with a GeForce GTX 1070 … both at full load.
