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Today we take a look at one of the freshest power supplies to ship from FSP, their new Mega TI 1650W. This fully modular power supply has achieved Titanium certification, adopts high quality Japanese capacitors and ships with a full 10 year warranty. Is the new platform any good? Today we aim to find out.
FSP are one of the few brands, like Seasonic, who create their own designs and they are in effect an OEM for many companies, including the likes of ASRock. FSP designs in recent years have improved over some of their earlier units we tested and I have high hopes today that this Mega Ti will perform well. With a name like ‘MEGA' we would certainly hope so anyway …
For those interested, FSP has also released a 1350 W version of this flagship unit.
Features:
- Efficiency ≧ 94% @ typical load
- 80 PLUS® titanium certified
- Supports 2 x native PCIe 12V-2×6 connectors and cables
- 105°C Japanese bulk capacitor
- Eco semi-fanless fan control switch
- Off-Wet, Off-Dust and Off-Stain conformal coating
- Top-notch topology of full-bridge & LLC converter and synchronous rectifier & DC-DC converters
- Fully modular cabling design
- Complete protections: OCP, OVP, SCP, OPP, UVP, OTP
FSP products are hard to get in certain parts of the world, and our review sample shipped directly from ASIA HQ to the United Kingdom. Above, is the outer box that our sample arrived inside.
After removing the outer box, we see a full colour box with lovely blue accents. Along the side is a blue strip signifying ‘special edition' and ‘to our VIP Guest'. I guess that is me, and this box is a reviewer special.
We can't see any certifications on the box from Cybenetics, but FSP told me that it has been 80 Plus Titanium certified and that subsequent box production will add this logo alongside the 80 Plus Titanium logo.
Inside the box, the power supply is held separately inside a cardboard surround, wrapped in a felt outer cover. The accessories are held inside another box offset to the side.
FSP include a little storage pouch, a big C19 power adapter cable, some literature on the product, a PSU testing and some cable ties.
Both 1350 w and 1650 w versions of this power supply ship with a tremendous amount of cables to cover every eventuality we can think of. FSP also supply two EPS connectors and eight PCIe connectors. Additionally, they bundle a pair of 12V-2×6 cables to deliver 600 watts per cable.
FSP have kept the Mega TI power supply a simple colour scheme, black with silver/grey accenting on the panels highlighting the company and product name. The build quality is really good and it feels well put together from the outside as you would expect with a premium priced power supply. In a rather technical manner FSP call the finish ‘Off-wet, off-dust and off-stain conformal'. coating'.
The top of the power supply has a rather large vented silver panel covering the fan. We will take a close look at the fan when we open the power supply later in the review. They even engraved ‘KitGuru' into the top panel of this unit. The more skeptical among you will be thinking they are trying to get into my good books!
One side of the unit is home to the power switch, power connector and ‘eco switch'. You cannot use a standard power cable with this unit, you have to use a C19 power cable. Someone pointed out that it was a C21 power cable before, but these are just high temperature versions of a C19 cable with a maximum pin temperature of 155c which is not needed in this specific use case. A C19 cable is rated to 65C.
The modular bay on this power supply is split into various sections all clearly labelled for ease of use.
This is a monster GPU, 20A is available to the minor +3.3V and +5V rails with a whopping 137.5A available to the primary +12V rail. No problems powering even the MSI RTX 5090 Suprim with this power supply in the system (review HERE).
FSP are using a Protechnic Electric fan, model number MGA13512XF-A25 rated 12V 0.38A. This is a high quality 135mm Fluid Dynamic bearing fan we have seen in other power supplies before such as the Hydro Ti Pro series. There is a plastic panel affixed to the fan which helps direct airflow across specific parts of the PCB and components underneath.
Protechnic Electric make some pretty good fans based on my years of reviewing power supplies, but I do not see them used that often in many units anymore, for some reason.
As mentioned earlier FSP make their own designs – the Mega TI is no different. Some of these designs can often be tweaked visually or technically for various partners such as ASRock. FSP are using a high grade topology in this unit, comprising full bridge & LLC converter with a synchronous rectifier with DC to DC converters to generate the minor rails.
This is a very densely packed PCB. Due to the claimed efficiency there is no need to populate the internal layout with massive heatsinks. FSP have adopted several vertical daughter-cards in various parts of the PCB to help reduce the space demand.
Soldering quality inside is really extremely good with a lot of attention to detail throughout. And I was happy to see high grade Japanese caps used in both primary and secondary stages. In the primary stage FSP have used Nippon Chemi Con 105c rated Japanese caps rated 450v 560uF x3, for a total of 1680uF output.
The unit offers OCP, OVP, SCP, OPP, UVP and OTP protections.
Correctly testing power supplies is a complex procedure and KitGuru have configured a test bench which can deliver up to a 2,000 Watt DC load. Due to public requests we have changed our temperature settings recently – previously we rated with ambient temperatures at 25C, we have increased ambient temperatures by 10c (to 35c) in our environment to greater reflect warmer internal chassis conditions.
We use combinations of the following hardware:
• SunMoon SM-268
• CSI3710A Programmable DC load (+3.3V and +5V outputs)
• CSI3711A Programmable DC load (+12V1, +12V2, +12V3, and +12V4)
• Extech Power Analyzer
• Extech MultiMaster MM570 digital multimeter
• Extech digital sound level meter
• Digital oscilloscope (20M S/s with 12 Bit ADC)
• Variable Autotransformer, 1.4 KVA
12V output is single rail for our testing.
|
DC Output Load Regulation
|
||||||||||
|
Combined DC Load |
+3.3V
|
+5V
|
+12V
|
+5VSB
|
-12V | |||||
|
A
|
V
|
A
|
V
|
A
|
V
|
A
|
V
|
A | V | |
|
500W
|
7.63
|
3.33
|
8.82
|
5.02
|
36.05
|
12.00
|
1.5
|
5.01
|
0.30 | -12.02 |
|
750W
|
12.63
|
3.33
|
14.12
|
5.02
|
52.06
|
12.00
|
2.0
|
5.00
|
0.30 | -12.01 |
|
1000W
|
17.75
|
3.33
|
20.00
|
5.01
|
72.25
|
11.99
|
2.5
|
5.01
|
0.50 | -12.02 |
| 1250W | 18.84 | 3.33 | 24.04 | 5.01 | 90.14 | 11.98 | 3.0 | 5.01 | 0.60 | -12.01 |
|
1500W
|
18.87
|
3.33
|
22.64
|
5.01
|
115.90
|
11.96
|
3.5
|
5.00
|
0.80 | -12.00 |
| 1650W | 10.10 | 3.33 | 10.10 | 5.02 | 125.00 | 11.94 | 3.5 | 5.00 | 0.80 | -12.02 |
Load regulation is really solid across the board.
Next we want to try Cross Loading. This basically means loads which are not balanced. If a PC for instance needs 500W on the +12V outputs but something like 30W via the combined 3.3V and +5V outputs then the voltage regulation can fluctuate badly.
| Cross Load Testing | +3.3V | +5V | +12V | -12V | +5VSB | |||||
| A | V | A | V | A | V | A | V | A | V | |
| 1150W | 3.0 | 3.33 | 2.0 | 5.02 | 92.0 | 11.97 | 0.2 | -12.01 | 0.50 | 5.00 |
| 250W | 20.0 | 3.33 | 24.0 | 5.01 | 5.0 | 12.01 | 0.2 | -12.01 | 0.50 | 5.01 |
The power supply produced a series of stellar results in the cross loading test. It exhibited no discernible weaknesses in any of the testing.
We then used an oscilloscope to measure AC ripple and noise present on the DC outputs. We set the oscilloscope time base to check for AC ripple at both high and low ends of the spectrum.
ATX12V V2.2 specification for DC output ripple and noise is defined in the ATX 12V power supply design guide.
|
ATX12V Ver 2.2 Noise/Ripple Tolerance
|
|
|
Output
|
Ripple (mV p-p)
|
|
+3.3V
|
50
|
|
+5V
|
50
|
|
+12V1
|
120
|
|
+12V2
|
120
|
|
-12V
|
120
|
|
+5VSB
|
50
|
Obviously when measuring AC noise and ripple on the DC outputs the cleaner (less recorded) means we have a better end result. We measured this AC signal amplitude to see how closely the unit complied with the ATX standard.
| AC Ripple (mV p-p) | ||||
| DC Load | +3.3V | +5V | +12V | 5VSB |
| 500W | 13 | 13 | 20 | 15 |
| 750W | 14 | 13 | 20 | 15 |
| 1000W | 15 | 14 | 22 | 15 |
| 1250W | 15 | 15 | 22 | 15 |
| 1500W | 15 | 14 | 24 | 17 |
| 1650W | 16 | 15 | 25 | 17 |
Ripple suppression falls well within industry rated parameters and it is a a great set of results all round.
|
Efficiency (%)
|
|
|
500W
|
93.23
|
|
750W
|
96.12
|
|
1000W
|
95.77
|
|
1250W
|
95.21
|
| 1500W | 93.88 |
| 1650W | 92.77 |
Overall efficiency is superb, peaking slightly over 96% at around 50% load.
We take the issue of noise very seriously at KitGuru and this is why we have built a special home brew system as a reference point when we test noise levels of various components. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on components we are testing. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
Today to test the power supply we have taken it into our acoustics room environment and have set our Digital Sound Level Noise Decibel Meter Style 2 one meter away from the unit. We have no other fans running so we can effectively measure just the noise from the unit itself.
As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 Player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
|
Noise (dBA)
|
|
|
500W
|
<28
|
|
750W
|
<28
|
|
1000W
|
32.3
|
|
1250W
|
32.8
|
| 1500W | 33.8 |
| 1650W | 36.4 |
The fan in this unit is very quiet and barely audible at all most of the time. If you hit around 900 watts of load it starts to spin up to compensate for some rising temperatures inside. Even at full load however this unit is quieter than many power supplies we have tested which produce half the output power at full load. Great results.
|
Temperature (c)
|
||
|
Intake
|
Exhaust
|
|
|
500W
|
36
|
38
|
|
750W
|
37
|
41
|
|
1000W
|
42
|
45
|
|
1250W
|
46
|
52
|
|
1500W
|
48
|
55
|
| 1650W | 50 | 58 |
The exceptionally high levels of efficiency ensure that internal temperatures remain at some of the best levels we have seen in the last couple of years. The large fan produces a decent amount of airflow which helps, without making much sound. The thermal / acoustics fan curve is pretty much stop on in my testing over the last few weeks.
At 1865W, the efficiency level is still good, measuring 90.77%. Not a practical situation to be running 24/7, but worth noting.
As I said earlier in the review, the quality of FSP power supplies in recent years has been gradually improving. In the high end sector, anyway – they do not send me budget supplies to review anymore. Before I started analysing the Mega TI, I had high hopes that this new design would prevail in our tests and I was pleasantly surprised to document some of the best results yet for the company.
As a flagship model, I have nothing but praise for the design, build quality and attention to detail. The Mega TI 1650w passed all the technical tests in our suite over the last few weeks and the incredibly high levels of efficiency combine well with the very low fan noise throughout most of the power range. The profile of this fan has been very well set up at the factory based on their internal data.
I am always reassured to see the adoption of a high quality 135mm Fluid Dynamic bearing fan, alongside high grade 105c Japanese rated Nippon Chemi Con capacitors in the primary stage. The power output of this unit is staggering powerful, with 3 primary capacitors delivering 450v 560uF x3, for a total of 1680uF output. The secondary stage is also heavily populated with high grade Japanese capacitors and it is clear that FSP have confidence in this unit, offering a 10 year warranty term.
On an appearance level this unit will fit into a wide variety of high end systems, and the fully modular design and high quality paint will ensure it isn't an eyesore if you like having your power supply on show inside a windowed chassis design.
Right now we do not have any pricing information from FSP or availability confirmation either. While a 1650W Titanium rated power supply will not be cheap, we usually find that FSP are pretty competitive in every sector. If we get updated pricing information we will update this page.
On a final note, when we publish any FSP review we usually get inundated with people complaining they cannot buy the products. Sadly this is not something we can fix, but we do mention this to FSP all the time. Hopefully going forward their global availability will improve.
Update: FSP have confirmed to us that availability for the Mega TI is set for March. The 1650W model has a $459 MSRP, while the 1350W model has a $399 MSRP.
Pros:
- Quiet fan and profile.
- FSP make their own designs, which I like.
- 105C rated Japanese Nippon Chemi Con Capacitors.
- Fully modular.
- high level of build quality.
- Extremely efficient.
- Load regulation is first class.
- Ripple Suppression passes certifications.
- High quality fluid dynamic bearing fan.
- 10 year warranty.
Cons:
- Availability is always a problem for FSP.
KitGuru Says: If you can manage to find this power supply in your country, and the price is competitive for a 1650W Titanium flagship then we have no hesitation in recommending that you snap one up as soon as you see it. For the rest of us, availability will likely be an ongoing issue. Nonetheless it is one of the finest power supplies I have reviewed in the last couple of years.
