Seasonic G Series 360W Power Supply Review

1. Introduction2. Seasonic G Series 360W Power Supply (Bundle and Cables)3. Seasonic G Series 360W Power Supply (External)4. Seasonic G Series 360W Power Supply (Internal)5. Seasonic G Series 360W (Super High Res Gallery)6. Testing Methodology & Results7. Closing Thoughts8. View All Pages

Today we are looking at a new power supply from Seasonic in their latest ‘G Series', targeting the mainstream enthusiast audience who have no desire to pay a premium. The G Series is offered in 360W, 450W, 550W and 650W configurations and we thought it made sense to start with the lowest rated unit.

When I was first told that Seasonic were releasing a 360W 80 Plus Gold certified power supply I have to admit I was slightly perplexed. After all, they already have the excellent X-Series 460W power supply which is fanless and ideal for the low power, low noise, media center audience. The only downside is the price, it retails in the United Kingdom for a tad under £120 inc vat.

To be fair, not many people would pay £120 for a 460W power supply, regardless of how much ass it can kick.

The G Series is targeting a slightly different audience. While Seasonic have still achieved 80 Plus Gold certification, the purpose of the G Series is to reduce the retail cost to reach as wide an audience as possible. The G Series 360W is not a modular design and the company have managed to aggressively target the budget audience with an entry level asking price of only £46.99 inc VAT.

Special features:

• 80 Plus Gold Certified.
• DC to DC Converter Design.
• Tight Voltage Regulation.
• Smart & Silent Fan Control.
• 12cm Ball Bearing Cooling Fan.
• Ultra Ventilation.
• High Current Gold Plated Terminal.
• Conductive Polymer Aluminum Solid Capacitors.
• High Reliable 105C Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors.
• 5 year warranty.

The Seasonic G Series 360W Power Supply ships in a very dramatically designed box. No image of the power supply on the front, although there is a 80 Plus Gold logo bottom right. You don't often see that on a sub £50 unit.

Seasonic bundle a case sticker, mounting screws, user manual, regional specific power cable and cable ties. There is no need for a storage pouch for the cables as they are all hardwired.

Above is a diagram of the full G-Series range. We can see that the G-360W unit has only a single PCI-E cable, however at this power capacity we would not really expect to see any more. This is not a power supply designed for a high powered gaming system, more for a general workhorse. It is worth pointing out that the cables are sleeved to a high standard, which is reassuring.

The main motherboard cable is measured to around 51cm, the six pin connector for the graphics card is measured to 57cm. The ATX12V cable extends to 55 cm.

The Seasonic G-Series 360W is a plain looking power supply design however it will fit perfectly into a wide range of systems.

The quality of paintwork is excellent, although it does attract fingerprints quite easily. A large 120mm fan is situated behind a grill at the top of the chassis.

There is no modular cabling on this particular unit, with all cables hardwired inside the chassis. On the other side is a honeycomb vented section alongside a power connector and switch.

The list of G-Series units. We can see that the G-360 can theoretically deliver 30A to the +12V output.

Seasonic are using an ADDA AD1212MB-A70GL fan. This is a ball bearing unit rated at 0.33A/12V.

The unit follows a very clean layout inside, with several rows of heatsinks separating the components.

The G360 is using a Japanese branded electrolytic capacitor from Hitachi, rated 270 µF x 420 V @ 105c.

The +5V and +3.3V outputs are delivered by two DC-DC converters. These are positioned on the single PCB in the secondary section of the layout. We noticed that Seasonic are using high grade Japanese capacitors in the secondary stage from Chemi-Con and Rubycon, also rated to 105C.

The cables are fully sleeved into the chassis and tied into position. This should help resolve any concerns with long term fraying.

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source.

Additional technical assistance: Peter McFarland and Jeremy Price.

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

DC Output Load Regulation
Combined DC Load	+3.3V		+5V		+12V		+5VSB		-12V
	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V
88W	3.73	3.37	4.04	5.05	4.22	12.08	0.60	5.02	0.12	-12.06
176W	7.51	3.36	8.05	5.03	8.53	12.06	1.24	5.01	0.25	-12.08
263W	11.25	3.33	12.04	5.01	12.79	12.02	1.88	5.00	0.37	-12.10
360W	14.97	3.30	16.54	4.97	18.03	12.00	2.49	4.97	0.50	-12.12

Seasonic G Series 360W	Maximum Load
	451W

Load regulation is strong across the output range. We managed to get 451W from the unit before it would shut down, safely.

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
88W	10	10	25	10
176W	15	15	30	15
263W	20	20	40	15
360W	25	25	50	20

Ripple suppression is well within the Tolerance guidelines, rising to between 20mV and 25mV on the +3.3V and +5V output. It peaked at 50mV on the +12V output.

Efficiency (%)
88W	87.88
176W	90.77
263W	89.12
360W	88.31

Efficiency is good, peaking at almost 91 percent around 50 percent 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 Corsair 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)
88W	28.0
176W	29.4
263W	30.3
360W	32.8

The big fan copes well and until the last 10% of load, the power supply is basically silent. It isn't until around 300watts of power output that the fan is audible, although it still spins quite slowly, even at 360Watts.

Temperature (c)
	Intake	Exhaust
88W	35	38
176W	38	41
263W	43	46
360W	47	56

Internal temperatures are excellent, rising to a 9c above ambient threshold at maximum load.

Maximum load	Efficiency
451 W	87.21

At 451 watts, the efficiency level measures 87.21%. Not a practical situation to be running 24/7, but worth noting.

The Seasonic G Series 360W Power Supply is yet again, another very capable design from one of the leading lights in this sector. There is no doubt that this specific unit is targeted at the educated enthusiast user who desires a high quality Gold certified design, without paying a small fortune for the privilege.

Aesthetically it is a simple, yet effective design. The paintwork is deep and the finishing is first rate, the cables are high quality and routed securely into the chassis. The design is very understated and will fit perfectly into a wide range of enthusiast system. It is also worth pointing out that there are enough cables included to satisfy the target audience.

Technically there is little to fault, load regulation is fantastic and it was able to handle a 450 watt load before shutting down safely. Noise suppression falls well within rated tolerance levels, although we have seen better from other Seasonic designs. At an asking price of under £50 however it is easy to make this particular point sound overly critical.

The biggest issue the company face is in educating the target audience. Almost everyone I speak with is certain that they need a 750W or 850W power supply, even when their system is probably demanding closer to 200 watts to 250 watts under load. I can only surmise that a large portion of the audience would balk at the ‘360W' rating, and ignore this supply completely.

To stress the point of ‘overestimating power demand' we can link you to a review we published earlier this week which focused around the Asus Maximus V Formula Z77 motherboard. On the power consumption page, the system demanded only 191 watts under 100% Cinebench R11.5 load. That system comprised a Core i7 3770k, overvolted and running at 4.8ghz, with 16GB of Corsair Dominator memory, running at 2,666mhz. There were also several drives in the mix, and a Corsair H100 liquid cooling the overclocked processor.

For a user with a modest, yet current generation graphics card this power supply would be surprisingly capable. Many power supplies in the £50 sector are also much less efficient than the G Series 360W, so there are many reasons for a purchase.

You can buy the Seasonic G Series 360W power supply directly from Overclockers in the UK for £46.99 inc vat. At this price it is a good value for money purchase.

Pros:

• Good price point.
• High efficiency.
• stable power  delivery.
• can handle 450Watts.
• quiet.

Cons:

• Not modular.
• people will be put off by the ‘low' wattage rating.

Kitguru says: Another great design from the Seasonic team, but they face a tough sell in such a competitive market. People often chase high wattage figures, rather than a quality design.

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