EVGA SuperNOVA 1600 T2 Review 17

EVGA SuperNOVA 1600 T2 Review

(17 Comments) »

Value and Conclusion

  • The EVGA SuperNOVA 1600 T2 retails for $416.
  • Monstrous capacity
  • Titanium efficiency
  • Delivered full power at 47°C
  • Ripple suppression at +12V
  • Top performance of the +12V rail in Advanced Transient Response tests
  • Japanese caps
  • Fully modular
  • Loads of connectors and cables
  • Extra long cables (with the only exception being the main ATX cable)
  • Very thick, high quality AC power cord
  • ATX-bridging plug included in bundle
  • Long hold-up time
  • 10-year warranty
  • Compatible with EVGA's Power Supply Cable kit (Individually sleeved cables)
  • Price
  • High inrush current
  • Noisy under stressful conditions
  • 3.3V performance in Advanced Transient Response tests
  • Soldering quality on the secondary side
  • Didn't do well in Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) tests
  • Dimensions
  • Short distance between peripheral connectors
EVGA's flagship, the SuperNOVA 1600 T2, is bloody expensive, and I personally believe the 1600 G2 to be a better choice if you need such a powerful PSU because it has a much better price-to-performance ratio. Yet if you settle for nothing less than Titanium efficiency, you should also be ready to pay the premium. In exchange, you will get one of the most efficient PSUs money can buy today, backed by a ten year EVGA warranty for some peace of mind. Currently, only EVGA dares to offer such a long warranty, which is worth mentioning as it might convince the competition to follow suit.

Load regulation might not be the best I have seen, but I understand that some compromises had to be made to achieve Titanium efficiency without any digital circuits. Most PSU manufacturers still seem to prefer proven, reliable analog circuits and are, as such, reluctant to make the switch to digital circuits to set new standards by pushing performance even further. This is to be expected since you have to have highly adaptable engineers who are familiar with digital circuits to make the switch. Given most PSU engineers dealing with desktop PSUs have thus far only designed analog circuits, it comes as no surprise that they need some time to familiarize themselves with the digital circuit and its tricks. However, the later a design team dives into digital PSUs, the later it will adopt these new design techniques, and in some cases, fresh and new minds will have to make a team to take the leadership role from those who stick to analog circuits. Super Flower's engineers have proven that analog circuits can offer efficiency that is equal to that of a sophisticated digital platform (the Corsair AX1500i), though, and while EVGA's flagship cannot compare to Corsair's top offering when it comes to load regulation and ripple supression, some may prefer the more reliable, simpler analog circuits to today's rather complex digital circuits inside a PSU since the latter come with more points of potential failure.

EVGA's SuperNOVA 1600 T2 would edge close enough to the performance of Flextronic's Titanium platform in the AX1500i if Super Flower were to somehow improve ripple suppression on the minor rails while improving load regulation at 3.3V. EVGA could also lower its price to around $400 for a better price-to-performance ratio, which would also affect how much their G2 and P2 models with a similar capacity would go for. I am aware of the fact that a part of the price covers the very high warranty period, but EVGA could, for example, offer a version with half the warranty period at a lower price to then let the consumers decide which version they would buy.
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Jul 4th, 2024 03:25 EDT change timezone

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