Introduction

We would like to thank Fractal Design for supplying the review sample.

Fractal Design is a Swedish company that puts a great deal of effort into providing extraordinarily designed products without compromising on crucial factors like quality, functionality, and pricing. Their chassis offerings are amongst the best, and many expert reviewers in this field, TPU's included, have given them various recommendations and awards. Their PSU offerings, on the other hand, have failed to stand out, which means the company is not as well-known in this field, even though their PSUs have an interesting design. But Fractal Design has concerted its efforts and is making a strong re-entry into this area with the release of many new PSU models to turn the tide.

The new top gun of their PSU arsenal is the fresh Newton R3 1000 W. It comes in two colors schemes, black and white, and features a single +12V rail, Platinum efficiency, a semi-modular cabling design, and fanless operation at low loads. It only uses Japanese capacitors, which tend to last much longer than Chinese and Taiwanese ones, and a ball-bearing fan for increased longevity. Since Fractal Design has significant experience in chassis manufacturing, they equipped the R3 1000 W with an extra-long EPS cable, which ensures that there are no compatibility issues with bottom-mounted PSU chassis, especially full-tower ones. On paper, the Newton R3 1000 W looks to have all the qualifications to easily face off against the competition. It only needs to prove itself on the test bench - against our relentless Chroma loaders.

Specifications

As we already mentioned in the prologue, the official efficiency of the unit is 80 Plus Platinum certified, while the operating temperature range is quite wide. Its protection features only include the basic ones. It doesn't include OCP (Over Current Protection), since it would be wasted on a single-rail 1 kW PSU, and OTP (Over Temperature Protection), which is, in our opinion, essential in any case. A double-ball bearings fan with a 135 mm diameter handles the cooling of the unit.

Although the PSU only has a single +12V rail, the manufacturer claims that it is ATX 2.31 compliant. However, this is not possible because the latter spec requires at least two +12V rails. But this is nothing to lose sleep over since compliance with the latest ATX spec is not as important as the overall performance of the unit. Finally, the warranty is long enough at five years and its price good considering the specifications.


The +12V rail is strong and can deliver almost the full power of the PSU, but the minor rails are not as strong as those of other 1 kW PSUs. Their combined power will still suffice for a contemporary high-end system. As for the 0.5A on the 5VSB rail - 1.5 A would be ideal. Nowadays, even 400 W PSUs deliver 2.5 A. We expect more juice on this rail from a high-capacity PSU.

Cables & Connectors, Power Distribution

Six PCIe and two EPS connectors are available at the same time, something that we expected of a PSU that can deliver 1 kW of power. The number of SATA connectors is also ideal, but two additional peripheral connectors would be welcome.

Regarding cable length, both EPS connectors are really long, so they will easily cover the length required of full tower cases. The modular PCIe cables are kind of short and the native PCIe cables, although they are of normal length, have a very small distance between connectors. Finally, Fractal Design was kind enough to provide the PSU with SATA cables of different lenghts to cover every scenario.

All native cables feature unimpressive sleeving, and we should also note that the second native PCIe cable could be modular, since some users may only use one VGA. Well, some could argue that there is no point in buying a 1 kW PSU if you only want to feed a single-GPU system. All native cables utilize 16AWG gauges for lower voltage drops, while the modular stealth cables use 18AWG ribbon wires.

Since this PSU features a single +12V rail, we do not have anything to comment on about its power distribution.

Packaging

The box features a simple but nice design. The front highlights Fractal's impressive logo and has a super-sized 80 Plus Platinum badge. This is their first Platinum unit, so they show it off and we can't blame them for it. In the bottom left corner is the five-year warranty badge, while two photos in the center show the PSU's sides. Finally, the top of the box has a carrying handle to help you move it around easily.


Both sides have a brief features description in some of the most popular languages.


The rear side has interesting information about the unit's specifications. There are also two graphs illustrating the efficiency and the fan's speed curves. According to the relevant graph, the first sample we had in our hands engaged the fan after around 50% load, a high load level for even a Platinum unit. Thankfully, Fractal Design decided to lower the load level at which the fan engages and set it to around 20% of the unit's maximum-rated capacity. This way, high internal ambient temperatures will be avoided, which effectively increases the lifespan of various temperature-sensitive components.