# Seasonic Focus PX VS Prime GX



## djisas (May 24, 2020)

So, been looking into psus and cant quite find any recent Seasonic reviews, even TPU only did the older ultra units.
Question is, would a focus PX be better than a prime GX or would a focus GX be the sweet spot?

From reading a lot online, it seems anything above gold just not worth the price but maybe the prime offers a better feature set, making it worth it...


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## JustAnEngineer (May 24, 2020)

What I like about the Focus Plus line is that they are shallower than many enthusiast power supplies.  The width and height are set by the ATX standard.  A shallower power supply may leave more room in your case for other things.  Quality-wise, all of SeaSonic's offerings seem to be excellent.


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## oxrufiioxo (May 24, 2020)

I would probably go with a 750 gold over a 650 platinum for example but if you're set on a certain wattage your probably can't go wrong with either.



When I was trying to choose between a 750W ultra Titanium vs a 850w ultra Titanium for my ryzen build it came down to them only being $20 usd apart.... Didn't feel it was worth dropping down even though my system probably would be just fine with either.


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## tabascosauz (May 24, 2020)

I've built with a few Focus Plus Gold 550s, no issues whatsoever. My backup rig has a Focus Plus Plat 550, also no issues whatsoever and quiet as a church mouse. It's either or, I just personally wanted to try the Platinum variant. Usually super affordable for the performance you get.

Not much sense in going any higher than the Focus line, Seasonic has really struck a home run with these. In the old days, G was good but not Focus good, and the lower end used to be filled with outdated S12/M12II(I) units, but the S12 platform is all but superseded by Focus now.


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## djisas (May 24, 2020)

JustAnEngineer said:


> What I like about the Focus Plus line is that they are shallower than many enthusiast power supplies.  The width and height are set by the ATX standard.  A shallower power supply may leave more room in your case for other things.  Quality-wise, all of SeaSonic's offerings seem to be excellent.



My zalman is massive, lol



tabascosauz said:


> I've built with a few Focus Plus Gold 550s, no issues whatsoever. My backup rig has a Focus Plus Plat 550, also no issues whatsoever and quiet as a church mouse. It's either or, I just personally wanted to try the Platinum variant. Usually super affordable for the performance you get.
> 
> Not much sense in going any higher than the Focus line, Seasonic has really struck a home run with these. In the old days, G was good but not Focus good, and the lower end used to be filled with outdated S12/M12II(I) units, but the S12 platform is all but superseded by Focus now.



Had an S12 before the zalman, it seems it died at the hands of it's second owner...


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## tabascosauz (May 24, 2020)

djisas said:


> Had an S12 before the zalman, it seems it died at the hands of it's second owner...



I'm pretty glad the S12 units have faded away. Component choices were top notch, but the design is prehistoric. I still have two TS550s from XFX, S12II rebrands and they're still going strong about 7 years in.

Another great thing about the Focus line is that they apparently share pinouts with the modern Primes, which means a single Cablemod custom cable kit works on all of them, if you're into tidying things up and looking nice. I've got one on the way for my SSR-550PX.


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## Nuckles56 (May 24, 2020)

tabascosauz said:


> I'm pretty glad the S12 units have faded away. Component choices were top notch, but the design is prehistoric. I still have two TS550s from XFX, S12II rebrands and they're still going strong about 7 years in.
> 
> Another great thing about the Focus line is that they apparently share pinouts with the modern Primes, which means a single Cablemod custom cable kit works on all of them, if you're into tidying things up and looking nice. I've got one on the way for my SSR-550PX.


Agreed, those S12's were way too long in the tooth by the end there when you were still seeing them being recommended for every other build still


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## Kissamies (May 24, 2020)

It's hard to go wrong with Seasonic, I have a Focus+ FX 750W myself and I don't have nothing to complain. Not in use ATM though since I use my HTPC with a lower end unit now.


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## Palladium (May 24, 2020)

There's little point going below or higher than a 80+ Gold unit with a 10 year warranty, unless you are really cash strapped.



Nuckles56 said:


> Agreed, those S12's were way too long in the tooth by the end there when you were still seeing them being recommended for every other build still



Most people are incapable of independent thought on PCs so it's blind bandwagoning all the way down. Also, I can feel my brain cells dying everytime I see Samsung QVOs in builds.


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## Nuckles56 (May 24, 2020)

Palladium said:


> There's little point going below or higher than a 80+ Gold unit with a 10 year warranty, unless you are really cash strapped.
> 
> 
> 
> Most people are incapable of independent thought on PCs so it's blind bandwagoning all the way down. Also, I can feel my brain cells dying everytime I see Samsung QVOs in builds.


The QVOs are fine for bulk storage on the cheap but I wouldn't use them for anything other than that


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## Bill_Bright (May 24, 2020)

JustAnEngineer said:


> A shallower power supply may leave more room in your case for other things.


BUT - a smaller PSU case typically means a smaller cooling fan. That's the main difference between the EVGA SuperNova G2 and G3 models, the smaller G3 PSUs have smaller fans. While both are excellent PSUs providing extremely well regulated and "clean" output voltages, the smaller fan means it may have to spin faster to keep the PSU properly cooled. Faster spinning fans typically means more fan noise. I hate fan noise so for me, its a no brainer - make sure to buy a case that does not restrict the PSU size. 


Palladium said:


> There's little point going below or higher than a 80+ Gold unit with a 10 year warranty, unless you are really cash strapped.


I agree. I tell folks not to try to cut corners in the budget with a cheap PSU. Get at least a Bronze from a reputable maker, though "Gold" would be better. Platinum and Titanium PSUs, unless you find a "too good to pass up" sale price, are just a waste in money. It would take many years of many hours per day of heavy use to make up the price difference in the energy savings the couple extra points in efficiencies the higher certified PSUs get you. 


djisas said:


> Question is, would a ABC be better than a 123 or would a XYZ be the sweet spot?


The "sweet spot" is determined by the components being supported. Not model number. Of course, buying too small a PSU is never good, and can actually be damaging to your hardware should the PSU's protection circuits fail. 

But buying too big isn't necessarily a good thing either. 

Most users don't know how much power their hardware actually needs and consumes. Most, even experienced uses, would be surprised to see how little it uses most of the time. This is where a nicely featured UPS or Kill-A-Watt meter can come in handy. 

The right way to find the "sweet spot" and to determine the proper size needed is to research all the components, determine their maximum power demand, add them all up, and that is the minimum supply you should get. But that takes a lot of time and work. So I recommend using a good PSU calculator and the best and only one I use or recommend is the eXtreme OuterVision PSU Calculator. This will calculate your minimum needs and recommend a suitable size for those needs.

Plug in all your current components. Be sure to plan ahead and include all the hardware you think you might add in 2 or 3 years (extra drives, bigger or second video card, more RAM, etc.).

I recommend setting CPU utilization to 100% and Computer Utilization Time to 16 hours per day. These settings will help compensate for component aging, and add a little extra padding to the results. This will also result in a little cooler and quieter operation.

Note that no calculator wants to recommend a PSU that is underpowered so they all pad the results, some more than others. The eXtreme OuterVision calculator is and can be the most conservative for 2 main reasons. (1) They have a team of researchers on staff constantly researching components for us to keep their extensive databases accurate and current. And (2), it is the most flexible and has the most extensive databases of available options you can enter. This allows it to factor in all possible components to accurately calculate our needs rather than guess.

The eXtreme PSU Calculator ensures you buy a properly sized PSU for your needs. One that has a little extra headroom for future upgrades, but not one that is WAY too big and a waste of your money. 

Another nice feature of this calculator is it also tells you what size UPS you need. 

Note that Seasonic and other PSU makers use OutVision's eXtreme PSU calculator too (though an abbreviated version).


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## GLD (May 24, 2020)

My Prime GX-750 has 4 PCIe single connector 8/6 pin cables. I like that over the more common 2 connectors per cable. And as we all know, the 12 year warranty is the best in the business.


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## JustAnEngineer (May 24, 2020)

The 120mm fan in the Focus PX is mostly silent.  The 135mm fan in the Prime PX should be even better. All of the Focus Plus PSUs are 140mm deep. The Prime PX 650 and 750 have the same depth, but the 850 and 1000 are 170mm deep. That makes the Prime PX-750 an attractive choice.


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## djisas (May 30, 2020)

Well I went and bought a Prime GX750, it's a thing of beauty and now my pc should be further stable and silent from now on...
The supplied cables are good, if a little long for my case making cable management a little harder, but my main issue is with the sata cable strings, the right one with all plugs angled 90º is unusable, the sockets are reversed and it's impossible to plug my drives no mater how much twisting I did, the other string while it has the sockets in the right orientation, it's not entirely angled, luckily i still managed to close the door on the pc and all is working fine, took me a long hour to setup everything...


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