Test Results – 115V
| 60 Minutes Test Period | 115VAC/60Hz | 50℃ | |||
| Models: | Seasonic PRIME TX-1600 | Seasonic PRIME TX-1600 NE | |||
| Fan Model | Hong Hua HA13525H12SF-Z | NF-A12x25 – High-Speed | |||
| Part Description | Fan (RPM) / Noise (dBA) | 2316 RPM / 52.8 dBA | 2315 RPM / 39.8 dBA | Tj (MAX) | Delta |
| CREE C6D10065A | PFC diode #1 | 82.78 ℃ | 89.15 ℃ | 125 ℃ (19A) | 7.70% |
| Infineon IPA60R099P6 | PFC MOS #1 | 85.36 ℃ | 93.78 ℃ | 100 ℃ | 9.86% |
| Infineon IPA60R099P6 | PFC MOS #2 | 87.73 ℃ | 89.80 ℃ | 100 ℃ | 2.36% |
| PFC choke #1 | 74.56 ℃ | 72.03 ℃ | 150 ℃ | -3.39% | |
| PFC choke #2 | 75.65 ℃ | 70.10 ℃ | 150 ℃ | -7.34% | |
| Infineon IPA60R080P7 | LLC MOS #1 | 83.61 ℃ | 78.96 ℃ | 100 ℃ | -5.56% |
| Infineon IPA60R080P7 | LLC MOS #2 | 80.15 ℃ | 77.55 ℃ | 100 ℃ | -3.24% |
| Resonant choke #1 | 85.72 ℃ | 84.48 ℃ | 150 ℃ | -1.45% | |
| Resonant choke #2 | 78.97 ℃ | 75.59 ℃ | 150 ℃ | -4.28% | |
| T1-Copper | 83.35 ℃ | 68.89 ℃ | 150 ℃ | -17.35% | |
| T2-Copper | 91.80 ℃ | 80.78 ℃ | 150 ℃ | -12.00% | |
| Nexperia PSMN1R0-40YLD | SR MOS HS | 68.40 ℃ | 75.57 ℃ | 100 ℃ (*) | 10.48% |
| Nexperia PSMN1R0-40YLD | SR MOS HS | 70.03 ℃ | 68.85 ℃ | 100 ℃ (*) | -1.68% |
| EMI Choke | 91.88 ℃ | 94.25 ℃ | 150 ℃ | 2.58% | |
| DD Choke | 64.58 ℃ | 70.43 ℃ | 150 ℃ | 9.06% | |
| 12V-Copper bar | 80.58 ℃ | 82.71 ℃ | 150 ℃ | 2.64% | |
| M-PCB GND | 88.17 ℃ | 91.89 ℃ | 150 ℃ | 4.22% | |
| Air inlet | 50.53 ℃ | 51.64 ℃ | |||
| Air outlet | 54.73 ℃ | 55.99 ℃ | |||
| AVG Delta: | -0.44% | ||||
(*) I measure on the heatsink and NOT the FETs because I cannot do the latter without affecting the heatsink’s effectiveness.
The outcome of all the above:
- The average delta temperature difference between the TX-1600 and the Noctua Edition (NE) TX-1600 is just 0.44%. But this number only doesn’t tell the whole truth!
- The PFC FETs are cooled way better in the TX-1600. I don’t like that the temperature in PFC MOS #1 gets close to 94C. This is at 115VAC input, which won’t be the case under full load at real-life conditions, where there will be a notable voltage drop on the AC socket. The lower the voltage input, the higher the amps, leading to increased thermal loads in the APFC converter.
- The main FETs are cooled better in the TX-1600 NE. But they don’t get too hot in the TX-1600, either.
- The significant improvement of the TX-1600 NE is on the main transformer, where the smaller fan provides better cooling, leading to notably lower temperatures. The main transformer doesn’t have a problem operating even at high temperatures. The lower the temperature, the better, of course.
- The resonant chokes are cooled slightly better in the TX-1600 NE.
- The 12V heatsink gets notably hotter in the TX-1600 NE on one side, registering a 10.48% higher temperature.
- The larger fan of the TX-1600 leads to better temperatures in the VRM circuits that handle the minor rails.
- At the end of the test, the TX-1600 NE is notably quieter, with a 13 dBA noise difference!
According to all the above, someone can say that the TX-1600 NE is the clear winner because of the notably lower noise output and the slight AVG Delta difference. But wait. I noticed something strange that might change the result! Remember that in the test methodology, I mentioned that I used the same Chroma ATE, the same fixture, and all cabling and the remote sense cables were the same! Well, look at the voltage levels on all rails below.
| Rail Voltage
(Full Load, 115V, 60 minutes, 50C) |
Delta | ||
| Seasonic PRIME TX-1600 | Seasonic PRIME TX-1600 NE | ||
| 12V Rail | 12.044 | 11.885 | -1.32% |
| 5V Rail | 5.062 | 5.029 | -0.65% |
| 3.3V Rail | 3.308 | 3.283 | -0.76% |
| 5VSB Rail | 5.113 | 5.115 | -0.04% |
For some reason, all rails have a much lower voltage output in the TX-1600 NE, with the largest difference at 12V, which is the most important. There were no voltage drops during the testing session due to the increased temperatures and loads. The TX-1600 NE just started at this low voltage level, compared to the plain TX-1600, and stayed there.
@Slim_Thug
1 minute ago (edited)
http://www.youtube.com/@HardwareBusters
I ordered a workstation setup that I put together.
One of the components is Astral 5090.
The second one is Seasonic Prime TX-1600W Titanium Noctua Edition which has 3.1 ATX and 5.1 PCIe.
Someone mentioned to me that Asus ROG Thor Titanium III 1600W has Voltage Stabilizer and GPU-first function.
Does this thing actually work, does it distribute evenly, does it solve the problem so my GPU wouldn’t be in danger of melting?
I really hope You answer at all and with a good one because I am waiting on my order which arrives at the beginning of march.
Someone had bought the Thor III and if it really helps then I have to hope that it comes back in stock so I can switch it out.
I would advise against the Thor unit because its platform has issues when/if operating at low voltage input.
Thank You
As usual noctua’s “secret” to low noise is…..low airflow!!! Useless
I got this PSU and have until 2/21 to return it on amazon. I plan on having a 5090 gpu and 9800x3d cpu. Should I be concerned about reliability? I live in the states (Iowa), my other option would have been Lian Li 1300 psu or the NZXT (I don’t really like NZXT’s cables). Should I switch PSU’s?
I also have until the end of the month to return mine… Was going to do exactly the same as you. But these reports got me worried and now I don’t know if I should return or not…
thinking I’ll return it if I don’t see an answer by next week and go with the other 2 options. I’d rather not take a risk on the psu.
Hello,
will there be a test of the new ASUS ROG Thor Titanium III 1600W in the near future and is this PSU better than the Seasonic Prime TX-1600?
yes if you’re getting an asus 5090 astral so it can do load balancing and hopefully ur house won’t catch on fire.
I got the PRIME TX ATX 3.1 1600 watt , not Noctua , but also notice 12v is 11.84 from MB reading , out of the the PC , used DR Power III to check , it was 12.3v for the CPU and 12v2x6 was 12.2v , also used WireView for the 4090 11.999 to 12.0 rock steady , software reading from the MB is a waste of time .
Seasonic Support Desk
You
Dear Harmon,
Thank you for your reply.
The PSU is ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1. Intel simplified the naming of ATX 3.1 to ATX 3 and PCIe 5 to avoid confusion. Therefore, our PRIME TX-1600, which follows ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1 standards, will include the 12V-2×6 cable and connector on the PSU side. You can check the connector on the PSU; it should have shorter sense wires and longer power pins. The packaging will also feature a 12V-2×6 logo to differentiate it from previous ATX 3.0 and PCIe 5.0 (12VHPWR) versions.
If you have any other questions, please let us know.
Thank you.
Do not take seriously the mainboard volt readings. they are totally unreliable. Use a cheap multimeter instead.
Aris would you review Gamemax GX-1050 Pro ?
Just my luck. Pulled the trigger a few days ago on one Noctua Edition PSU after spending loads of time reading through reviews and checking the lists.
I am still well within the return period, in your opinion, would this be a reason to to return the PSU and choose another model? I am on 240v.
Thank you so much for all the wonderful analysis and reviews you make, they are extremely helpful.
I just measured the rails on my Noctua Edition PSU with a Fluke multimeter and I get 12,16v readings on the 12v rail. Is the problem with the lower 12v rail only when there is load applied?
Really good article as always Aris, just one comment. You cannot use percentage values to quantify the differences between two temperatures taken in Celsius degrees; you have to use absolute values instead.
Good point – you *could* compare percentages based on delta over ambient.
For example, taking the PFC MOS #1 measurements in the 115V test:
* TX-1600: 35.36 °C over ambient
* TX-1600 NE: 43.78 °C over ambient
* Delta: 8.42 °C, 23.81%
Yes, I can also use Delta, but why can I not use percentages to provide the difference more intuitively? Is there any literature for this?
Hi Aris, let me rephrase what I said in a more long winded answer.
It’s not that it’s not possible to express the difference between two readings in Celsius or Fahrenheit as percentages, but it’s more than those two types of units work in a “relative scale and not an absolute scale” (from Wikipedia). That is, Celsius only measures stuff relative to the boilling and freezing points of water at 1 atmosphere. That’s unlike something like Kelvin or Rankine units, the former of which is described by the US National Institute Of Standards and Technology as an “absolute unit” because it measures the “average energy of motion (kinetic energy) [an object’s] atoms and molecules have”. As such, the percentual difference between two readings done at Kelvin and Rankine describe the change of kinetic energy between two objects. Based on my understanding, I could only describe the percentage difference between two readings done in Celsius as how much the thermometer readings changed, which is a pretty weird usage when a Celsius reading is on itself an already straight-forward way to understand temperature. Using percentages is only making things more complicated!
With that said, I’m not saying that Hardware Busters should now measure everything in Kelvin just so that we can present temperature deltas as percentages. It’s especially silly when the temperature of air and water cooled PC components never goes below ambient temperature .It’s just that based on what I mentioned above, a percentage difference is very rarely used when comparing two Celsius readings. I can recall that Steve from Gamers Nexus has said a similar thing in camera (he probably said something along the lines of “You cannot use percentage values to quantify the differences between two temperatures taken in Celsius degrees; you have to use absolute values instead”, which admittedly was my viewpoint before I actually done some research to write my answer lol), and I imagine it’s a similar reason why I can’t ever recall seeing this on other competing tech sites (including Anandtech, Tom’s Hardware, Techpowerup, etc.) and on other contexts for that matter (like weather forecasts). And talking about weather forecast, I found a post on ResearchGate that mentioned this exact issue, and there’s an answer posted by someone called “Peter Urich” that includes a response from a chief meteorologist at WGN-TV that mentions similar points to what I said at the beginning of my answer. I’ll link you with the URL: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Percentage-change-in-temperature-in-future-climate-condition
Even if I’m no physicist, I just find it more straightforward to represent those differences as an absolute value instead, which is what’s already used in most tech websites.
Cheers!
Got it, thanks! But given my academia background, I still see nothing against using percentages apart from the fact that some users might get confused. These big sites, I used to write for them too, Tom’s and TPU, and the fact that they don’t use percentages doesn’t mean anything to mean I am afraid, since they are not the “standard”. The “standard” for me is what you know personally and your studies and research in the field and I have a strong background there that I trust to guide me. This doesn’t mean of course that I will be right on all cases.
But please we should not confuse what is “not right” with what can be confusing. Using percentages for temperature readings might not be common but it is not wrong either. Now if I did that in dBA which is a logarithmic scale it would be wrong for sure, but temperature is NOT logarithmic but linear. It is just that the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales are a fraction of the whole range.
I agree with the other two commenters, that using percentages here is not great. If I have to stop and ask or think about 5% relative to what then I think you can do better at communication. I had to quickly calculate what the percentages meant here. There is an unspoken assumption that 0 is the start of the scale here. Even without using that assumption lets say we were going to compare the base psu with a special version. Would measuring two values 100C and 0C really be 100% better cooling? Does it even make sense? This approach can give numbers that start to lose meaning quickly. What the reader wants to really know is if they used both power supplies about how much cooler would it be in degrees delta.
I’d say a percentage really only works if we were able to compare heat transfer rates/efficiencies.
It’s essentially the same reason that when showing a graph, it’s often seen as misleading to put the minimum value at something other than 0. An example that’s commonly used to illustrate this is charts of average height (of a human) by country, if you draw in silhouettes of humans instead of bars (but don’t start the “feet” at 0 but something higher like 1 meter).
But I think it’s reasonable to use percentages when using difference over ambient temperature, because that’s also an effective 0 (the point of thermal equilibrium). IIRC thermal energy also scales linearly with temperature so you can say it’s x% worse at dissipating thermal energy (but don’t quote me on that).
Good review. Thank you crmaris!
Ugh, they messed it up with noctua edition.. Great article!
even on 230V the fan is running over 1200(sic!) RPM faster than acceptable
if put under serious load this PSU would be louder than graphic cards, not a great experience
also, while many of PSU use special 135mm fans using a 140mm one should be possible, A14x25 anyone?
It would be possible, but more difficult, since the side plates would have to have holes cut out, since 140mm width of PSU is given by the standard. In 150x140x86 PSU with the NF-A14x25r G2 it could look like this: https://imgur.com/xFs5L9R
yeah, I guess all the 140mm fans used in power supplies are ones without the standard frame, a collab on a product like this should be able to pull it off, but not this time