Lepa G1600 PSU review - Certification and Efficiency

Certification

So, LEPA offers a 80+ Gold certification PSU, tested by the 80PLUS organization (the people that certify and test efficiency). We already explained a little what that literally means. But what does such a certification entail?

Well, we have standard, bronze, silver, gold, and platinum certifications. A PSU that is certified 80 PLUS Gold or 80 PLUS Platinum is more efficient than a normal unit. Below you'll find a table that shows what efficiency levels a PSU has to achieve at a given load to make the grade for a specific certification level.

The LEPA G1600 power supplies are certified by the 80PLUS organization to deliver 90% energy efficiency at 50% load and still 87% efficiency when your PC idles. We are not 100% certain if the product complies with the ErP (Energy Related Product) directive to ensure less than 1W of power is used in passive standby and off modes. We'll test that manually later on in the article.

You'll notice that the EU models at 230 Volts have slightly better energy efficiency, so the MA-EU SKUs are a hint better, but can only be used on countries that supply 230 VAC. 

• Powerful 1600W fully rated output, peak power up to 1700W
• Surpassing 80 Plus Gold level (G1600-MA is 80 Plus Gold certified.)
• Full Modular Cabling Design makes system upgrade and replacement easy
• High Density PCB Design makes G1600 only 18cm in depth, providing more space to dissipate the heat inside the chassis
• 135mm ball bearing fan with thermal programmed speed controller delivers silent, cool operation
• Honeycomb-shaped ventilation design increases airflow and keeps power supply cool
• Solid State Capacitors and 105°C Japanese Grade A Capacitors provide great reliability
• DC-to-DC Converter Design ensures system stability
• Full Bridge and Zero Voltage Switch (ZVS) topologies provide superior performance and reliability
• Dual Sided PCB design synergizes PCB layout
• Six powerful +12V rails with high maximum loads offer great compatibility with heavy-duty graphics cards
• Ability to run up to 4-Way GPU (SLI / CrossFire) and Dual CPUs together without difficulty
• Compliance with EU ErP Lot 6 standards (lower than 1W power consumption at standby mode)
• Over Power, Over Voltage, Under Voltage, Over Current, Over Temperature, Short-circuit protection provide great safety to your system
• ATX12V version 2.3 and EPS12V version 2.92 compliant

The Lepa press release

LEPA announces the launch of a new flagship power supply: The G1600 surpasses the requirements of the 80 PLUS® Gold certifications and delivers a peak power of 1700W. Therefore it is the most powerful PSU on the market that meets the golden efficiency standard (up to 93% efficiency at 230V).

Perfect Choice for Professional High-End Systems

The LEPA G1600 is the perfect choice for multi-GPU systems, heavy-duty workstations and servers as well as for industrial PCs. Equipped with first-quality and durable components as well as with an advanced protection circuit, the new LEPA power supply complies with the requirements of professional high-end systems. With the so-called "High-density PCB design", the manufacturer successfully reduces the size of the PSU: The 1600W are packed into a housing of just 18cm depth! Other 1kW PSU easily exceed a depth of 20cm.

Rock-Stable and Flexible Power Supply

Six powerful 12V rails and the flexible full-modular cable management with a large number of connectors guarantee the full support of high-performance hardware. The Zero Voltage Switch (ZVS) topology further ensures the compatibility with the energy-saving functions of latest graphics cards and CPU. According to that, the LEPA G1600 delivers rock stable voltages over the whole load range from 0W up to 1700W.

The G1600 is the vanguard of a complete new LEPA G series. Further models with 650W, 750W, 850W and 1000W will follow. The LEPA G1600 is now available at a MSRP of 255 incl. VAT, which is not by any standard that expensive for a PSU of this class, no Sir.