Tuniq Potency 550 Watt Power Supply

Company Information:

Tuniq was formed as a division of Sunbeamtech and took on a whole new direction in product designs.  We at Tuniq aim to provide authentic performance through a minimalist approach by stripping down the unnecessary components in product designs.  Our research and development team consists of members who have over a decade of experience as well as young designers who are able to think outside of the box.  It is this unique merge of experience and fresh ideas that enables us to bring to our customers such exquisite, elegant, top-quality products.

Tuniq is a fairly new brand to the power supply industry, but they already have great power supplies to offer to consumers.  They range from 550 watts, all the way to their flagship Ensemble 1200 Watt power supply.  Today, we are going to take a look at the Potency line of power supplies from Tuniq.  The particular model that we are reviewing is the Potency 550 Watt, which is lowest wattage that Tuniq offers.  This power supply is SLi certified and also 80Plus certified. 

Upon opening the box, you will find the users manual, power cable, screws, zip ties and a molex extension / splitter cable.

Here are some of the main features and specifications from Tuniq's Website:

The Power Supply:

The power supply features a traditional matte black colored housing and fan grill.

Looking at the side of the power supply, there is a Tuniq label with their logo on it, the model number and a condensed specification list.  Note that there are two +12v rails, each supplying up to 25 Amps.  The 3.3v supplies up to 25 Amps and the +5v supplies up to 25 Amps. The efficiency is 80 percent or greater at 20%, 50% and 100% loads.  According to the 80Plus website, this power supply has an average efficiency of 85% at typical loads (50%) and an overall average efficiency of 82%.  Great!

There is an large grill on the back which allows the 120 mm fan to exhaust hot air, an on/off switch and AC Power Input.  This power supply does feature Active PFC, so there is no need for a  switch to select the input voltage.

This power supply features the following cables:

-A 24-pin ATX power connector

-A 4-pin +12v CPU Power Connector

-An 8-pin +12v CPU/EPS Power Connector

-1x  6+2-Pin PCI-Express Power Connector and 1x 6-Pin PCI-Express Power Connector

-4x Molex Power Connectors, with a grip for easy removal.

-4x Serial ATA Power Connectors

-1x Floppy Power Connectors

Cooling:

There is a 120mm fan on the bottom of this power supply.  During testing, at idle loads, this fan is very quiet, nearly silent! With loads, the fan sped up a bit, making a small whirring sound, but the noise was acceptable.

Inside the Power Supply:

* Taking this power supply apart will void the warranty.

Inside the power supply,  there are three very thin silver finned heat sinks, to cool down the voltage rectifiers.  The main transformer is near the middle of image, while the smaller transformer is above it.  The primary capacitor is REC branded, while the secondary capacitors are also REC branded. The PCB layout and board quality is great.  The solder is also lead free, it seems.

The primary capacitor is  REC branded.

The secondary capacitors are REC branded.

The fan inside is a Globe Fan branded fan. It has the model number S1202512L with a maximum draw of 0.18 Amps.

Testing:

For this power supply, the test system consists of the following:

-Antec Nine Hundred Two Case

-Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor @ 3.4 GHz (1.40v)

-ZeroTherm Nirvana 120 Heatsink

-eVGA nForce 680i SLi Motherboard

-4GB (2GB x 2) of OCZ Platinum DDRII-1066 Memory

-320GB x 4 Western Digital 7200RPM 16MB Cache Hard Drives

-1x nVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 (55nm) Video Card @ 667MHz Core / 1053 MHz Memory

-Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital Sound Card

-Lite-On 6x BD-ROM / 18x Asus DVD-RAM Drives

-4x 120MM fans, 1x 200mm fan

-2x CCFL Lights

(Multimeter Results)

*For additional / larger pictures of the Potency 550 Watt, Click Here

*Voltages are at a 'Max Load' for a typical gaming computer, running Orthos, Sisoft Sandra Hard Drive benchmark and 3DMark06 CPU Test 1 and 2 / Deep Freeze HDR test, and read with a Multi-Meter.

Capacitor Brands (subjective rating):

Primary: Unknown

Secondary: Unknown

Primary: REC

Secondary: REC

Voltage Results:

+The results were excellent for this power supply, the results being well within range.  All rails remained quite strong, except for the 5v rail, which had a slight voltage drop. 

Stability Results:

+Everything ran fine during testing, the system was stable and performed the tests as expected. 

Fan Speed Impressions:

+During the tests, the fan was very quiet with idle loads and only produced a slight whirr with loads.

Installation:

+Installation of this power supply went well.  There were no issues fitting it inside the test system's case.  Since this power supply is not modular, there were a few wires in the way.  Tuniq's included zip ties helped a lot.

Conclusion:

This power supply would be ideal for anyone looking to build multi CPU core gaming / workstation system with two moderately powered video cards.  This power supply is SLi certified for up to a single 9800GX2.  There are an adequate amount of power connectors, as well, for its wattage rating.  It is also 80Plus Standard certified.  At around $40 (after a rebate), this power supply is priced perfectly for a excellent 550 Watt power supply.  Overall, this is a good value for a 550 watt power supply and should be purchased by anyone looking for efficiency, great output performance, and great build quality.

Pros +

-Excellent power output

-Three Year Warranty

-Very quiet fan

-Good Price

-80Plus Standard

Cons -

-Not modular

-'Unheard of' capacitor brand

Techaddicts.net would like to give this power supply an Excellent rating!

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