About Seasonic:

 

Seasonic USA was established in 2002 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sea Sonic Electronics Co., Ltd. in Taiwan to develop retail channels and to grow Seasonic as a premier retail brand in the US and Canada. Both marketing and technical support are provided by Seasonic USA.

Sea Sonic Electronics is a cutting edge power conversion technology company with a powerful, experienced engineering research and development team. Sea Sonic has provided timely and professional solutions to meet many of the IT industry's requirements since 1975.

Sea Sonic Electronics successfully entered the telecommunication and networking power conversion market in the year 2000. At the same time, we expanded our manufacturing facility to provide JIT global logistics service in order to meet increased business demand.

Since the incorporation of Sea Sonic Electronics Co., Ltd. in 1975, we have maintained our focus on research and development and the production of quality power conversion products.

For the past decades, supported by cutting edge technology based upon a strong research and development team, Sea Sonic Electronics has provided timely and professional solutions to meet many of the IT industry's requirements.

For the future, we will continue our philosophy of dedication; innovation, professionalism and 4G's (Great Technology, Great Quality, Great Service & Great Price) in order to maintain our goal of continued long-term business partnerships and create "win-win" situations for our customers.

History

1975		Sea Sonic incorporates to manufacture Electronics Test Equipment.
1980		Sea Sonic enters PC power supply market to support Apple II and IBM PCs.
1984		Headquarters relocates to Shih-Lin, Taipei , Taiwan .
1986		The factory phases in Automated Test Equipment in production methodology, this is the first in switching power supply manufacturing in Taiwan .
1990		Second factory in Tao-Yuan , Taiwan begins operation.
1993		European office opens in The Netherlands.
1994		Dong Guan China I factory begins full operation.
1995		Sea Sonic develops our ATX power supply for the Pentium market.
1997		Dong Guan factory receives ISO9002 certification.
1998		The Dong Guan II factory begins full operation.Taiwan headquarters and Tao-Yuan factory receive ISO9001 certification.
1999		Headquarters relocates to present address at Neihu, Taipei .
2000		Dong Guan factory receives ISO 9001 certification. The first PSU maker to provide PC and IPC market cost-effective Active PFC (Power Factor Correction) solutions. Designs and applies S 2 FC (Smart & Silent Fan Control) towards PC and IPC products.
2002		USA office opens in California , USA . Sea Sonic Electronics Co., Ltd. lists on the Taiwan 's Gre Tai Securities Market (OTC Stock Exchange).
2003		Launched retail products with own brandname and won awards and recommendatioan worldwide.
2004		Dedicated to develop green & silent power supplies with higher efficiency and higher power output.
2005		the USA office was renamed as Sea Sonic Electronics Inc. , a 100% Sea Sonic owned subsidiary, to serve North and South America customers. The first PSU manufacturer to win the tough 80PLUS efficiency certification.
2006		Dong Guan factory receives ISO14001 certification. Began to mass production RoHS & WEEE compliant products.

R & D

Over 30 years of history enables our engineers to accumulate broad based experiences, this are our company's strength. As well, our R&D team's history can be considered the longest in our industry in Taiwan . With this advantage, Sea Sonic maintains a competitive edge in the business.

Sea Sonic Electronics cooperates with many industry-leading companies to provide high-perception-value products with state of the art technology. In addition, willing to break through, Sea Sonic has established key partnerships with major component suppliers to implement up-to-date technology and to broaden the application of new components. Therefore, our goals of quality improvement and cost reduction can be achieved.

Quality Assurance

From research and development to production, to marketing, to after sale support and service, quality is the overall basic requirement. Fault free products and customer satisfaction are our ISO 9001 concept.

All Seasonic products are manufactured in our ISO 9001 & ISO 14001 certified factory in DongGuan China with an overall capacity of 1,00,000 units per month. Our products comply with CE, CISPR22 and FCC part 15 class B, AS/NZS 3548 and safety certifications include UL, C-UL, VDE, TUV, D, N, S, FI, CCC, PSE, CB and so on.

ISO 9001 Certification for Taiwan Head Office ? ?ISO 14001 Certification for Dong Guan Factory
& Dong Guan Factory

Factory Information

To support the increasing demand, Sea Sonic's production site has expanded gradually. In 1994, our first China factory joined to contribute production. Soonly , China factory conducts our major production. Our China factory locates at Dongguan City , 2 hours distance from Hong Kong . The total capacity of the factory per month is 850,000 pieces per; according to our business increase, our factory is keeping extending. There are now many more production lines and facilities for our extending business coverage.

Product Specs & Features:

Full Modular Design (DC to DC)
The Platinum Series features a high-tech LLC/full-bridge circuit topology with a unique integrated DC Connector Panel with an embedded Voltage Regulator Module. This design contributes to a near-perfect DC-to-DC conversion that optimizeefficiency by reducing current loss and impedance.




Seasonic Hybrid Silent Fan Control
An industry first, advanced 3 phased (Fanless, Silent and Cooling Mode)thermal control balances between silence and cooling. In addition, a selector switch is provided to allow you to select between the Seasonic S2FC control, without fanless mode or the S3FC fan control, with fanless mode.

80+ Platinum
The Platinum Series, certified in accordance to the 80PLUS highest standards, offers the newest technology and innovation for performance and energy savings with up to 92% efficiency and a true power factor of greater than 0.9PF.

Special Features

1. 80PLUS® Platinum Certified Super High Efficiency
2. 7 Years Warranty
3. DC Connector Panel with Integrated VRM [Voltage Regulator Module]
4. DC to DC Converter Design
5. Active Power Factor Correction [99% PF Typical]
6. Conductive Polymer Aluminum Solid Electrolytic Capacitors
7. High Reliability 105? Japanese Grade A Capacitors
8. High Current Gold Plated Terminals
9. Tight Voltage Regulation [±2%]
10. High +12V Output
11. Dual Sided PCB Layout
12. Seasonic Patented Hybrid Silent Fan Control
13. Sanyo Denki San Ace Silent Fan
14. Ultra Ventilation [Honeycomb Structure]
15. Full Modular Cabling Design
16. Multi-GPU Technologies Supported
17. All-in-One DC Cabling Design
18. Easy Swap Connector
19. Universal AC Input [Full Range]

Product Information

1. Dimension: W190 x L150 x H86 mm

2. AC input & DC output voltages (Full Rang: 100-240V (Max 90-264V), 13-6.5A, 50/60Hz)

Model: Platinum-860/1000 (SS-860XP & SS-1000XP Active PFC F3)




3. Wire Configuration

The Seasonic 1000 Watt PSU comes in a big, fully sealed box, sporting a nice image of the included PSU. Weight is 4140 grams, meaning we have a serious heavy PSU here at the lab. Mostly weight is a good indication of the quality of a PSU.

80+ at the right corner.

 

Turning the box we see more about the 80+ certified:

Manufacturer                         Model Number Form Factor Wattage    20%   50%   100%    Rating

Sea Sonic Electronics Co., Ltd. SS-1000XP      ATX12V       1000      91,51    92,54 89,67    Platinum according to www.80plus.org 

But as an end user we really like the 7 years warranty! Amazing !

 

Inside, we can see from left to right a little black velt bag protecting the PSU. On the right, a little double pouch with the modular (aka removable) cables.

 

 

Clearly marked Seasonic, a touch of class

 

And what do have here?

 

Doesn't this looks great ? Everyone has to admit this is a very nicely designed PSU. But that's just the exterior, it's ofcourse on the inside what matters the most.

So lets dig in deeper...

 

Besides the Sanyo Denki - San Ace silent fan on the top:

 

We spot the power outlet and the Power on/off button:

 

 

This side give us the information about the model, S/N number and all kind of official certifications required for import and electrical rules.

And the AC input / DC outputs on most PSUs are nicely listed :

 

 

And :

 

 

But we go to the most important section of the PSU, the connector side.

 WOW this is really great.

 

On the back of the Platinum 1000 PSU:

1. 1x 18Pin MB + 1x 10Pin MB:  These 2 are needed for the MB's 24 Pin connector
2. 6x 6Pin IDE & SATA:  For use with peripherals such as HDD, optical drives, etc.
3. 1x 8Pin CPU:  For ATX 12V or EPS CPU
4. 3x 12Pin PCIe:  For use for up to 3 SLI cards (www.geforce.com/Active/en_US/en_US/pdf/PSU.pdf)       
   1. nVidia only approved the Platinum 1000W for 3Way SLI applications.
   2. If end user wants to use this PSU with a Quad setup, which is not advised. Requiring 8x power connectors, then they can contact Seagate to get an additional SLI connector.
   3. There are more and more Quad SLI that only needs 4x power connectors so theoretically, 2x PSU PCIe connectors will be enough. 
5. 1x 12Pin CPU/PCIe:  For use for dual CPU or PCIe

 

Plenty to connect and without already integrated cables you can only plug in the cables you really need.

 

Time to void the warranty and open up the Seasonic case

This part holds the Sanyo Denki 120 mm fan, the San Ace 120.

 

 

But more interesting is the PCB housing all the main electrical components :

 

 

Hello city called Seasonic 1000w. A small bus tour brings us among some CM chokes, Y & X caps, a MOV, thermistor with heatsink, electromagnetic relays, bridge heatsinked rectifiers, mosfets and more unknown buildings. The streets are really nice, made of solder points and nicely clean. If you don't have any clue about those previously mentioned parts. Just retain their names and look for a more detailed scope in the upcoming High end PSU Roundup article.

 

Let explain the cables ->

Starting with the 20/24 MB cord:

 

 

CPU cables times 2:

 

 

PCI-E cables times 3:

 

 

Followed by Pata cables 3 x:

 

 

And finishing with 4 x sata cables:

 

 

Wait there is more -? One cable for dual floppy drive connectors:

 

 

The Seasonic will hardly run out of power for all your system hardware, unless you want to use more HDD's, well just put a second PSU in your system. For daily use this is what we need!

 

 

Some Velcro ties, zip ties, Seasonic badge and bolts plus a screwdriver to do your cable management and firmly secure your PSU.

 

Time for tests like we do at home -?

Before the real system test we will do a small PSU tester set-up.

It's very simple tool for testing if a PSU does run correctly or not.

One ATX tester and the 2 x Arcol HS25 plus the Energy power meter:

 

 

Besides the PCP&C 860 we are testing several others too.

But this initial simple test already shows the Seasonic is really a low power consuming PSU compared to the others.

 

 

Time for the bench set-up ->

 

We set up a normal system like you probably will use at home:

Intel 2500K overclocked at 5gig 1.425 volt WC cooled by an Antec Kühler H2O 920 

MSI P67A-GD65 

Patriot 4GB DDR3 Viper Xtreme 2133 Mhz  

MSI R6970 Lighting overclocked at 970 x 1580  1.3 volt 

Intel SSD 80 gig 320 serie x 2 in raid 0 

Energy power meter

Some volt meters and all mounted on a Dimastech bench table

And to get some extra juice from the system I will be using 2 x Arcol HS25 plus a reference ATI 3870x2 card.

For reference I will use my trusty old PC Power & Cooling 860 watt PSU.

 

To test the power supply in both IDLE and Full Load, we will use OCCT 4.0  power supply test.

First we test the idle function of the test system for about 1/2 a hour each.

Adding a Brand A 1200 watt (this review will be made later):

 

 

I had to lower the CPU multiplier to 49X for the OCCT power supply test to keep it stable. Then I let it run for a full hour for each PSU.

The CPU test I however could complete at 5000Mhz:

 

 

 

As you can see the system needs plenty of power but the Seasonic had no signs of weakness.

Al read outs from my charts are in watts. I did run some game benchmarks to see how much watts those need.

Starting with a GPU test from 3Dmark Vantage:

 

 

Less power needed here. 

Finishing with my favorite game at the moment Codemasters F1 2011:

 

 

These last 2 tests mainly use the videocards so the power consumption I have recorded is lower.

Time for some final words on the last page  ->

Time for us to give a final verdict to this 1000 Watt PSU:

For a price at €239,00 you will get a low noise modular power supply, stable as a house and for daily high end use more than adequate, more than sufficient connections to add devices.

If my SB-E system will come in, I will surely use this one first.

Looking at your electric bill it will save a few bucks too.

The noise of the PSU was hardly worth mentioning and with the switch on normal I only heard my work laptop, but mostly I heard my 3 GPU fans running like crazy at full speed.

Sure I did a home overclocked test without using advanced equipmentsb, but after I have finished some more PSU reviews I will take it to our Madshrimps friends at Coolermaster Eindhoven for an in-depth lab test.

I have big faith that the outcome of the lab test will be similar to what I have measured at home. This really is a kick ass 1000 watt PSU, ready to defeat many 1200 watt's.

I would like to thank Seasonic for supplying the review sample. Also I want to give a big thumb up for my good old friend Dave from the Benelux Distribution centre.

 

Let me be clear on this one, as I normally work with 1200 watts, the Seasonic really surprised me in a good way. So there is only one reward for this:

 

 

Check back from time to time, to see more PSU reviews and in the end a real lab test on all the tested models.

Hope you had a good time reading my preview article and till next time !