Seasonic Core GX Series 500 W

[crmaris]

The Seasonic Core GX-500 performs well and is silent under normal operating conditions. Its fully modular cable design and compact dimensions are great, too. If only you could find it at a lower price.

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[mechtech]

How does the 'core' platform compare to the 'focus' platform?

 

[MachineLearning]

Thank you for the review, I appreciate looks at these less prominent options. I own two of the Core GM 500W (basically identical afaik) and they serve me well, I was definitely suspicious of the fan however.

 

[Nunya Beeswax]

Sleeve-bearing fan and a seven year warranty? Now that's something you don't see every day. Seasonic must be pretty confident.
Thank you for the review as always.

 

[HD64G]

Thanks for the analytic review! I recently got a non-modular GC500 for €60 and from what I see in this test, it has good value and the 7-year warranty should be a good sign of its reliability.

 

[sLowEnd]

Yuck, a sleeve bearing fan. I know I'm just working off my own anecdotes here, but I've had two sleeve bearing fans fail on me before in two different PSUs, albeit 10+ years ago. They both conked out after about 4 years. Haven't bought any sleeve bearing fan PSUs since.

The combination of a horizontal orientation and elevated temperatures doesn't tend to be good for sleeve bearings. Maybe the elevated temperature part won't be as applicable with a lot of cases these days -- most don't do the old style PSU-at-the-top thing anymore.

 

[Mussels]

@crmaris It might be worth adding an explanation on the ripple charts about what a "good" result looks like, much like we have 'lower is better' and 'higher is better' so that the images make sense to people without prior knowledge
The rail regulation images above have the red lines as an indicator of when things go out of spec, but the ripple images just have fuzzy caterpillars, with no explanation of what the curves mean, or how much of the curve is bad

 

[docnorth]

How does the 'core' platform compare to the 'focus' platform?

I think it's one league lower. Usually the small or nonexistent price difference guides us straight to the focus line.

 

[Chrispy_]

Is it just me or is there absolutely zero benefit to making an entry-level low-wattage PSU semi-modular?
As far as I can tell it just increases costs without providing any benefit whatsoever.

In a higher power unit, it could conceivably be used to power things other than a motherboard, like a GPUs in a mining rig but as a 'budget' 500W part it's clearly going to go into a dGPU PC build and nothing else, so there's no reason to add cost by making the 24-pin and 8-pin ATX cables modular. Arguably at least one PCIe power connector could be hardwired too, since there's little to no reason to purchase a PSU of this Wattage without a dGPU to power.

It doesn't cross my mind for a premium build where buyers are choosing to spend more for extra features, but in the Core series where cost is a major factor and value is important, fully-modular just seems like a frivolous waste of budget that could have been used to either lower the price or increase quality, such as a higher-quality fan or better heatsinks to reduce operating temperatures and noise.

The combination of a horizontal orientation and elevated temperatures doesn't tend to be good for sleeve bearings.

Yeah, that's one of the more sure methods of reducing a sleeve-bearing's lifespan, short of actually beating it to death with a hammer.

 

[mechtech]

Is it just me or is there absolutely zero benefit to making an entry-level low-wattage PSU semi-modular?
As far as I can tell it just increases costs without providing any benefit whatsoever.

In a higher power unit, it could conceivably be used to power things other than a motherboard, like a GPUs in a mining rig but as a 'budget' 500W part it's clearly going to go into a dGPU PC build and nothing else, so there's no reason to add cost by making the 24-pin and 8-pin ATX cables modular. Arguably at least one PCIe power connector could be hardwired too, since there's little to no reason to purchase a PSU of this Wattage without a dGPU to power.

It doesn't cross my mind for a premium build where buyers are choosing to spend more for extra features, but in the Core series where cost is a major factor and value is important, fully-modular just seems like a frivolous waste of budget that could have been used to either lower the price or increase quality, such as a higher-quality fan or better heatsinks to reduce operating temperatures and noise.


Yeah, that's one of the more sure methods of reducing a sleeve-bearing's lifespan, short of actually beating it to death with a hammer.

I would say this for almost any/every econo psu. For a mere $20 extra you can get so much more. Now psu % ($)wise that might be 20%, but if it's a $1500 system, $20 is a very small percentage. A gold rated PSU with a 10 yr warranty that exceeds all ATX specs should be the base entry model nowadays. Anything below that IMHO is ewaste or will make ewaste out of a system earlier than it should.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

A gold rated PSU with a 10 yr warranty that exceeds all ATX specs should be the base entry model nowadays.

This.

I can't fault this unit or the TX550M and it's other contemporaries for being bad PSUs, they just don't offer much in most systems compared to something like an RM550 when you consider how small the price gap is.

 

[TheDeeGee]

Seasonic going a bit backwards when it comes to quality?

I own a Fanless TX-700 myself, which i'm happy with but it seems to have gotten poor reviews as well. Hasn't failed on me though (a year in use now), and i doubt it will as i don't push it with the hardware i use. But they don't seem to be the king of PSUs anymore.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

I mean this is a low end unit so I don't think you should expect anything stellar from it... They seem to have gone with pretty nice components, it's set up sensibly in terms of protections and regulation and ripple wise it's reasonable... Rather surprised by the high inrush and the fan choice I'd agree is... interesting

It's not bad, but I wouldn't take it as representing a top tier build, be it from seasonic or anyone else.

Overall seasonic quality I wouldn't say has gone back much, though they definitely have had some trip ups. I would more say that people overrated seasonic historically (consider how good super flower looked on the EVGA G2 series for example) and that where there was a gap other OEMs have been stepping up their game (CWT might be a good example here?).

 

[thegnome]

For not much more you get a so much better unit, generally better design & wattage. If it was cheaper it'd would make a good budget option.

 

[Dave65]

Nice review.

 

[ipo3nk]

Is it just me or is there absolutely zero benefit to making an entry-level low-wattage PSU semi-modular?
As far as I can tell it just increases costs without providing any benefit whatsoever.

maybe not for seasonic. alot of their psu have dc2dc converter in the modular pcb, this require cable to be full modular. using the same parts and pcb might reducing cost for them.

another seasonic non modular gold psu have 2 layer pcb, making it more expensive.

 

[Ripcord]

Really strange that its only Bronze rated at 230v usually efficiency goes up with voltage not down

 

[Phynsx]

Really strange that its only Bronze rated at 230v usually efficiency goes up with voltage not down

If you look at this unit report, it shows an increase in efficiency, but the power factor is very low, so the unit needed a label to match this characteristic.