The Andyson N500 Titanium PSU Review: High Efficiency For The Common PC

Hot Test Results

Switching over to our hot testing results, as we see in the following tables, the N500 Titanium displays excellent stability and delivers very good power quality, even when thermally stressed. The maximum voltage ripple on the 12V line is 52 mV at maximum load, less than half that of the design limit (120 mV). Strangely, the 3.3V line always displays a ripple of 16 mV, regardless of the unit's load. The maximum recorded ripple on the 5V line is 26 mV, nearly half of the design limit (50 mV).

Voltage regulation is very strong on the 12V line, with a regulation of 0.75% across the load range. On the other hand, the regulation of the minor voltage lines is considerably worse, at 2% across the load range, but that remains a very good performance figure for such a PSU.

We should mention that this PSU does not have a clear temperature rating. This most likely means that it has been rated at 40°C, as this is the commercial computer PSU temperature standard. However, in order to match the 50°C rating of several high-end products, we perform our testing at temperatures higher than 45°C. We could reduce the ambient temperature of our hotbox testing but we chose not to do so as the results would then not be comparable to those of our previous reviews.

According to our results, it does not look like Andyson would have any trouble giving this PSU a clear power output rating at 50°C. The N500 Titanium can maintain its output and strong performance within a very hot environment. It lost only 0.55% of its average energy conversion efficiency, which dropped to 93.55% across the nominal loading range. The drop is evenly distributed across the load range and does not increase in effect as the load increases, suggesting that the PSU's capacity is virtually unaffected by the high environmental temperature.

The internal temperatures of the N500 Titanium do go high with the unit operating inside our hotbox, reaching heatsink temperatures over 80°C at maximum load. Thermal performance is a little worse than before, with widened temperature delta's by about 15%, indicating that the cooling system of the N500 Titanium is getting a little stressed. Still, the fan does not overwork itself. It does spin faster and gets louder than before, but it does not really go over 75% its maximum speed. Apparently, Andyson is not willing to sacrifice the acoustics performance of the PSU unless it is absolutely necessary and these temperatures are not high enough to have an impact on the PSU's longevity or, apparently, its performance.