FSP FX700 FX-Epsilon Power Supply Review

FSP group first opened its doors in 1996. A decade later they have built themselves into one of the top 10 suppliers of power conversion products. Among their line of general PSUs and power adapters are PSUs specifically for home computers. Chances are, you have seen one of their units under another manufacturers name or under the name Sparkle. Today we have an FSP unit that actually says FSP on it; the 700 watt FX-Epsilon.

The FSP FX-Epsilon series includes 600, 700 and 760 watt power supplies. The 700 watt edition (FX700) we are testing today is touted as a high efficiency, quiet operation, SLI ready, ATX V2.2 compliant unit. Well, we'll just see about that.  Nurse, bring us our screwdrivers!  (shaken, not stirred).

Contents and Features

Out of the box we see a very good looking and compact unit. The casing is a nice royal blue with a hint of metallic flake. This is no generic steel box. It will look good in about any system build. The package comes with an FSP case badge (so you can “represent”), a short but detailed manual, mounting screws, and the unit itself. We should also mention that there are no zip ties. HL readers all know how we like zip ties. But FSP did not disappoint - they did better. The FX700 comes with two black Velcro straps and the strap that bundles the harnesses together in the box is also a reusable Velcro strap. These are better than zip ties! Thanks FSP!

The FX700 is a single 120mm fan unit. The fan is an intake that will be located at the bottom of the unit in a typical installation. This is a pretty common setup these days and the theory goes that the large 120mm fan (as opposed to the often used 80mm size) will actually cool better at lower RPM. That can mean less noise. Our tests will tell if the theory pans out in reality for the FX700, but we feel we are off to a good start.

The specification panel on the unit tells us that the FX700 is a quad 12V rail unit. Each 12V rail can provide a maximum of 18A (216 watts). In the fine print, the combined 12V rails can pump out 50A. That's 600 watts of 12V juice ready for your system to guzzle! It's typical for a PSU's combined rail power to be less than the sum of the maximum power for individual rails. This means that if you are only lightly using one of the 12V rails, you have more overhead on another 12V rail you may be pushing harder.

The +3.3V and +5V rails are rated at 36A and 30A respectively. Combined these rails can produce a maximum of 155 watts. That's a respectable and common range for these rails. You might notice in the specification panel that the 12V power distribution is broken up in a somewhat irregular fashion. The 12V3 supplies the 24 pin main board connector for example. If it bothers you, just pretend it say “12V1” - as the numbering scheme has more to do with internals than with actual use. We would like to thank FSP for providing the information though. Many PSU makers do not - and for someone testing a unit that can be a hassle. Thanks again FSP!

Cables, Connections, Dimensions

The FX700 is not a modular PSU, but that doesn't mean that FSP abandoned the principles of good cable management. All of the cable/wire harnesses are sleeved from tip to toe. That includes between connectors on harnesses that have more than one. Not only does this improve cable management, it's better for cooling and looks nice. The two 6-pin PCI-E connectors won't be hard to find either, as they are sleeved in a different color.

Cable lengths are adequate on all eight harnesses. The 24 pin mainboard connector has a 20-pin breakaway system for legacy machines. The EPS/P4 connector is actually setup for either hooking into a 4-pin or 8-pin mother board. Oddly, if you have an 8-pin motherboard, the PSU will power it from two different 12V rails. We don't see a problem with that - in fact it gives you a bit more headroom wattage wise. There is no -5V rail in this PSU, something to be aware of if you are looking at raising an old (very old) system from the dead (most modern PSUs no-longer carry this rail). Connector wise, everything is there. The only possible connector we see missing would be the rarely used 8 pin PCI-E.

The dimensions of the FX700 match the ATX specification of 5.5" deep, 5.9" wide, and 3.4" tall. This impressed us. Not too long ago a PSU designer/vendor told us that for PSUs over 550 watts, you simply can't pack the electronics required in to an ATX sized housing and expect reasonable performance. We didn't buy that. We'll have to see if the FX700 proves us right during performance testing. Why is the size important? Well, there are a number of PC cases/enclosures that really don't have room for physically larger PSUs. So, with FSP holding to the specification in physical dimensions, the end user shouldn't have to worry about whether or not they need to buy a shoe horn with their PSU purchase and can keep the ruler in the holster. Kudos FSP!