Introduction

In power supply reviews the final rating depends heavily on the unit's overall performance in the electrical tests we conduct. That's why we think having a numeric aggregate score for the electrical performance of a PSU is a useful key characteristic. Once you have that score, you can easily calculate a price/performance ratio which greatly simplifies the product selection process, because users can easily compare two PSUs.

After long and careful consideration, this article presents our PSU Performance Rating Methodology which evaluates the performance of each PSU regardless its capacity, efficiency certification etc. The rating score reflects electrical performance, so it does not include characteristics like modular design, warranty, fan noise, origin of capacitors etc. All these key characteristics are added into the final review rating which we give at the end of each review. We will present the performance rating on a separate page, along with graphs to compare the unit with competing products. Also we will calculate and show a price/performance graph. Since this method relies only on measured characteristics of the PSU, it is highly accurate and reliable.

The following five crucial factors are taken into account:

• Voltage Regulation
• Ripple
• Advanced Transient Tests Response Deviation
• Turn On Transient Tests Voltage Overshoots
• Efficiency
• Unit’s Capacity

On the next page we will explain the detailed calculation method for each parameter and how they are all combined into the final rating.