Introduction

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

We already reviewed Fractal Design’s top PSU offering, the Newton R3 1000 W. It left us quite satisfied with its overall performance. Today, we will take a good look at its budget sibling, the Tesla R2 1000 W. It is made by the same manufacturer, ATNG, and is based on the same platform. Some compromises had to be made in order to lower the final price, and these have resulted in a non-modular design and several internal component changes, but with the 80 Plus Gold certification, efficiency is still very high despite the lower-grade components used internally. The cooling fan remained the same and utilizes ball-bearings instead of an inferior sleeve-bearing.

The R2 1000 W features a single +12V rail that can deliver up to 80 A of current, is equipped with six PCIe connectors, so it can feed up to three high-end VGAs, is covered by a three-year warranty, and has a maximum operating temperature of 40°C at which it can deliver its full power continuously. All the above sounds very interesting, and the Tesla unit will score a pretty high price / performance ratio, which is what most users pay attention to first when they plan out their next purchase, if it manages to register a good overall performance on our test bench. The lack of modular cables will most likely turn many off, but modular cables apparently cost a lot and are the first to be left out when the price has to go down significantly. I personally prefer keeping the grade of internal components high, which makes leaving out a modular cabling system to keep costs down a reasonable tradeoff.

Specifications

Efficiency is high enough at Gold, and the maximum operation temperature at which the unit can deliver its full power continuously is restricted to 40°C. We are still going to stress the unit at up to 45°C. Thankfully, the lack of OTP (Over Temperature Protection) won't lead to drastic situations. Available protection features are also restricted to the basics; OCP is absent, of course, since it is meaningless in a 1 kW, single +12V rail unit.

The cooling fan is of good quality as it utilizes ball-bearings, which last much longer than sleeved ones. The unit unfortunately doesn't feature a semi-fanless operation, so the fan is constantly operating, even at very light loads. This does, on the other hand, result in lower internal temperatures, something highly beneficial to most components, especially electrolytic capacitors.

The dimensions of the unit are compact with a lenght of only 165 mm. The currently smallest 1 kW unit is to the best of our knowledge only 5 mm shorter. Finally, the warranty is set at three years, a long enough period considering the category of this unit, but the price looks to be a bit on the high side for what the PSU has to offer. Users can even find modular units with Gold-certified efficiency in this price range. We think a price closer to $120 would be more appropriate for this PSU.


The single +12V rail is very strong and will easily feed a high-end system with a triple SLI- or Crossfire configuration. The minor rails are restricted to 100 W, but almost no contemporary system will need more out of these rails. We would, on the other hand, like a stronger 5VSB rail with at least 3.5 A maximum current output.

Cables & Connectors, Power Distribution

The main ATX cable is a little short and should be closer to 60 cm long, but the EPS cable is really long. There is unfortunately only one, and a PSU of such a capacity should have been equipped with two. The length of the other connectors is near to normal with the exception of a pair of PCIe connectors that are installed on a rather short cable. Also, the 24-pin ATX connector uses 16AWG gauges while all the others utilize the normal 18AWG wires.

Fractal Design decided, for reasons left unexplained, to only include two 4-pin Molex connectors with the 1 kW unit. This is bad, of course. There should at least be three more such connectors since many components still use these.

We do not have anything to comment on about its power distribution because the unit features a single +12V rail.

Packaging

The PSU comes in a medium-sized box with a carrying handle on top. The front has two images of the unit, and the corners on the bottom showcase the unit's 80 Plus Gold badge, SLI- and Crossfire certification, and the three-year warranty. Fractal Design's nice logo resides in the top-left corner.


Multilingual descriptions of the unit's most crucial characteristics can be found on both sides.


The rear side holds a description of the unit's most important features and two graphs depicting the efficiency of the PSU and the fan's speed throughout the entire load range. There is also a table of the rails' characteristics and a list of all available connectors.