FSP Aurum S Gold 650 PSU Review

The FSP Aurum S Gold 650 is a specially built power supply for gamers and workstations purpose. If you haven’t heard of the ‘FSU’ brand, then we were on the same boat. I’ve got to admit that I was not familiar with the brand before, so I spent some time researching the FSU’s company profile.

It appears that the FSP group is actually the 5th largest power supply vendor in the world. They supply their manufactured power supplies to well-known brands such as Antec, OCZ, SilverStone Technology and Thermaltake.  FSP also has an excellent track of record in medical and industrial fields (not just consumer products).

This excites you yet? Let’s have a closer look at their FSP Aurum S Gold 650 Watts power supply.

FSP Aurum S Gold Review – Design & Packaging

With black-and-gold-like lining on the packaging, the box showcases a hidden fan inside the PSU cage, along with the FSP Group gold colored brand. The packaging feels heavy but neatly packaged.  You can barely hear a rattle when you shake the box.

Inside the box, you’ll find a manual, a warranty note, and the FSP Aurum S PSU unit. Cables are neatly placed next to the padding around the unit. The power supply unit itself feels solid and rugged, due to the contoured surface from all sides. It doesn’t have same look and feel with PSUs that I have at the moment, like Antec NeoEco 450C and Thermaltake Smart 650W (which are mostly made of flat steel).  Touching the FSP Aurum S Gold 650 has this rewarding feel to it.

The FSP Aurum S Gold has uniquely designed ventilation which allow natural air flow, along with a giant fan to improve air extraction to keep your PSU cool. There is no question about how good the ventilation around the PSU is.

FSP Aurum S Gold Review – Packaging Contents

Just by looking at the amount of cable FSP Aurum S has, you’ll know right away that this PSU is built specially for gamers and workstations. Certified for ATi CrossFireX and NVidia SLI multi-GPU configuration, you can go and build yourself a 4 x ATi graphic cards PC rig with this. Let’s compare it with a standard purpose Antec NeoEco 450C PSU:

Looking at the charts, FSP Aurum S Gold is indeed a PSU ready for gamers. Though you can’t really fit four high ends graphic cards to it, you definitely can fit 2 high end graphic cards without worry (or 3/4 budget range of SLI/CrossFireX enabled graphic cards). Don’t forget that the FSP Aurum S Gold has an 80 Plus Gold certification. That means three levels higher of efficiency compared to the standard 80 Plus, 80 Plus Bronze, and 80 Plus Silver. That should give you a peace of mind should your current PC configuration has nearly reached the limit that your PSU can handle.

The story may be different if you’re not a gamer or don’t have a workstation/file server at home, however.

You may also consider using the FSP Aurum S Gold to help you build a RAID SATA configuration as it supplies you with 9 SATA cables! You may need some additional molex cables, though.

FSP Aurum S Gold official specifications:

• 5 years warranty for peace of mind
• Active PFC 99%
• MIA IC a patented designed to provide maximum performance and also protection. “By implementing this patented control IC plus the mature Active Clamp topology, we are able to realize Zero Current Switching and thus efficiency was improved tremendously on AC-DC power conversion. Therefore, less energy is converted and wasted as heat. Higher reliability of a PSU is reached with AURUM’s high efficiency design, since heat is the No.1 killer of a PSU”
• SATA Array cable help you to build a RAID storage configuration.
• 12V single raid design to anticipate power-intensive graphic cards.
• 80 Plus Gold (expect 90% high efficiency)
• Abundant cables for multi GPU configuration. NVidia SLI ready and ATi CrossFireX certified.
• Complete protection feature and safety measure approved.
• Meet ErP 2013 standard
• Japanese quality capacitors

FSP Aurum S Gold Review – Performance

Under standard load on regular activities such browsing, watching video, or writing codes, the FSP Aurum S Gold is reasonably quiet. It started to generate some noise once I played my favorite game, Crysis 2, on Extreme settings with two CrossFireX graphic cards.

Saying that, this may not be a fair test though because the noise could come out from anywhere (not just from the power supply itself). I also tested this with the CoolerMaster Scout 2 case, which has a standard level noise dampening.

FSP Aurum S Gold Review Conclusion

FSP Aurum S Gold delivers the expectation of a gamer PSU. No funny, crackling sound could be heard during a high load phase (which normally appears in low quality PSUs). It also comes with NVidia SLI ready and ATi CrossfireX certified.

After reviewing this unit, the FSP brand is now on my preference list! The product is solid, not to mention the fact that FSP manufactures power supplies for Antec, SilverStone Technology and even Thermaltake.

Disclosure: FSP Aurum S Gold 650 PSU review sample was sponsored for the review. Opinions are 100% mine

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