Power Supply Roundup: 650W-680W

Seasonic Energy Plus SS-650HT

As one of the pioneers of the modern "planet saving movement", Seasonic's 650HT is a very aged power supply. Still, as stated Seasonic was one of the first companies to design energy efficient topologies, and they've earned respect from users all over the world. Coming in a standard black color with a silver fan grill, this unit doesn't look all that special, but that's Seasonic's modus operandi, and it has helped make them famous. Their first retail power supply - the Super Tornado in 2002 - came in plain grey in a day when colorful power supplies were all the rage. Seasonic ignored the fads and instead focused on high efficiency and high reliability for their products. The 650HT was one such product, first released a few years ago. Since many own these power supplies (or variations of this power supply), we felt including it in this roundup made sense.

Looking at the Seasonic label we see four 12V rails rated at 18A, with a total combined power of 52A. Recognize the pattern yet? The 3.3V and 5V rails both have the standard amperage and 170W combined power.

Being a little bit behind the current market trends has been a common feature of Seasonic, but since this fellow is already over a year old we won't criticize it for only including two 6-pin PEG connectors; besides, that's standard practice in the 650W range as we can see from the competition today. All cables are nicely sleeved with a decent length. Seasonic doesn't try to be different from the crowd, and the cables come with standard lengths of at least 50cm.

The inside is nice and sleek. Compared to the be quiet! power supply, the Seasonic Energy Plus seems empty and comes in a very short and compact case. Look closer and you can see that this design is also used in the PC Power & Cooling Silencer, though PC Power added components to the primary side. Seasonic also uses a 120mm fan, which is the major difference from some of their OEMs. The heatsinks need to let some air through, and Seasonic uses a standard heatsink design of a simple plate cut and bent into shape. It's one of the cheapest methods of producing heatsinks since the tooling costs of an extruded heatsinks are quite high, but Seasonic doesn't have a problem with high temperatures and this type of heatsink is sufficient for their needs. Channel Well also uses this method for some of their power supplies, but they don't leave enough space between the fins to let air through.