Well for starters it uses those Teapo caps which age considerably worse than Japanese formula capacitors.
Seasonic doesn't use exclusively Japanese capacitors either, not that it matters as long they're fit for the job. And For the reference, Corsair RM 2019 uses Su'scon and Elite capacitors, yet they offer full 10 years warranty on it because Jon Gerow knows his stuff. The importance of 'Japanese' capacitors is overstated today, some Japanese branded capacitors are made on the same factories as Taiwanese and Chinese ones. Like yeah, all Japanese capacitors are good as long as they're of appropriate use-case and specs but there are Taiwanese and Chinese branded caps that are just as good. Besides, i wasn't talking about capacitors only, or rather not at all, but okay, that was rather rhetorical question.
Then you have the soldering
Nothing wrong with their soldering.
Or fans. Speaking of which, Seasonic for some reason uses Hong Hua rifle-bearing fans on their entire high-end lineup, with random selection of driver ICs at that it seems (because there are reports of motor noise from some percent of users while others don't hear a thing). How does that speak for the 'Seasonic always uses best quality components' sentiment exactly ?
You flatter me, but you're barking up the wrong tree. I am not a spec hound, I learned just enough to tell what brands are good or bad, and a few specs that matter.
So really, there's nothing you can base your claims on ? Just a bunch of marketing videos from folks on YT ?
Well for starters it uses those Teapo caps which age considerably worse than Japanese formula capacitors. Then you have the soldering, fit / finish or the other components such as fan or the heatsinks on the rectifiers, etc. It's just not Seasonic good.
Where all that 'Seasonic is the best' started from ? I just can't wrap my head about it, they're just another OEM, using the same components as everyone else as long as their customer doesn't require lower quality components specifically to drive down costs. Which they're perfectly fine with doing themselves, remember Seasonic S12III ? Now wait for reviews of Seasonic B12 BC / G12 GC, because they're essentially 1st Player Armour PSUs with Seasonic label on it, i hope there will be reviews at least, but i pretty sure there wouldn't, because Seasonic doesn't want that 'Seasonic is the best' image they were constructing by sponsoring YT tech channels for a decade. There is also a Seasonic Core series with very few good enough reviews to date, and none from Aris, i wonder why, because they didn't send any review samples ?
Now, it may look like i'm just shittong Seasonic but i'm not. It's an OEM job's to tweak the product for customer's specifications, and in this regard Seasonic is no different to other OEMs like High Power, CWT, Great Wall, Enhance, HEC, FSP and Andyson, they all have very good units on their hands, and mediocre too, and bad ones. It's just that Seasonic is quite small compared to most other OEMs and do not have resources to engineer or customize PSUs at such degree as say, CWT, Great Wall or even High Power, not that they want too it seems, they're perfectly fine with only selling their platforms under their own brand and very reluctant to customize them for other brands, the only examples are NZXT E (NZXT were very insisting it seems) and Corsair AX (and Jon doesn't say any good things about his experience of working with Seasonic at all). So on average it may seem like other OEMs have products of lesser quality, but that's just because they just satisfy their customer demands by having a vast spectre of products.
What i'm saying, judging a PSU just by it's OEM or brand or even whether it packs only Japanese capacitors or not is completely wrong. You should look at each specific PSU in question, specifically professional, detailed reviews of it, not some YT talking head going 'yay, Seasonic gifted us their PRIME Titanium 1200W unit, we built a new PC on it, and it's goooood ! buy it, the link in description !'.
Another thing tho, Seasonic are in the position where they're an OEM and customer simultaneously, they know what they want and how to do it. It may seem that
this is why they
must be better than others, but as long as other brand which outsources production is willing to dedicate their resources into researching on what they want (not just grabbing stuff off the shelf) and making sure that they receive exactly what they want (by having a team of engineers), there's nothing wrong with outsourcing per se.
TED talk over.
