Introduction

We would like to thank FSP for supplying the review sample.

After releasing the high-end Hydro G line, FSP has now introduced more affordable units that are more appealing to those on a tight budget. The fresh Hydro X line consists of three members featuring low- to mid-level capacities in the range of 450 W to 650 W. All Hydro X models are 80 PLUS Gold certified and use Japanese electrolytic caps for better reliability, especially under tough operating conditions. A quick look at their specifications shows the only compromise to be the lack of modular cables, which are usually the first to go when production costs need to be kept low. The lack of modular cables also isn't as dramatic with low capacity units because they don't feature as many cables as stronger PSUs.



In this review, we will take a good look at the HGX550 of the Hydro X family. This PSU can support a strong gaming system with two NVIDIA GTX970 VGAs because it has a total of four PCIe connectors on two PCIe cables. The most brave of you could also use it in a SLI configuration with two GTX980s and a powerful CPU, but such a setup would have it operate at its limit, which would kill any headroom for overclocking the GPUs or the CPU. The better choice would be to figure out your system's power consumption to then pick a PSU that provides at least 20% more wattage than is required. This will avoid situations in which the PSU is put under full load, where efficiency is lower than with smaller loads.