Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

The Deepcool DQ850-M-V2L is a nice evolution of the DQ series from Deepcool GamerStorm. The internals looks even better, and what’s best – this time the unit comes with a 10-year warranty. It’s still an 80 Plus Gold certified PSU, and that’s the sweet spot from the consumer’s point of view (in terms of efficiency/price of the unit). The 850 W variant should be enough for most users with a single graphics card in their system. You need to remember that there are also 650 and 750 W variants in this range, which allows consumers to find the perfect fit for their system. In reality, even a setup like the one used in this test (i9 9900K + Geforce RTX 2080 Ti) rarely exceeds 400 W of power draw.  On the quality side, all is good, and the efficiency (on par with 80 Plus Gold declarations) and stability tests went nicely as well. Load regulation is very good, and there was no noticeable droop on the +5V and +12V rails. Ripple suppression is well below tolerance levels. The 120 mm fan is set too high in the low-mid load. It becomes very audible close to 80% load, so there’s still some room for improvement there (maybe in another revision?). It would be good to use an FDB and maybe a 140 mm fan with a semi-passive functionality or at least set the fan curve lower. In the package, you get a fair set of accessories, including mounting screws, zip ties, a power cord, and a manual.

A word about efficiency

Same as with any other power supply, 50% of the maximum load is where the device is at its most efficient. At this sweet spot, the Deepcool DQ850-M-V2L achieved a bit over 91% (at 230 Volts). In the case of this particular unit, half of the maximum wattage is 425 W. The average gaming PC with a single graphics card (at least the ones that are usually spotted in Steam hardware polls) won’t exceed this value under normal conditions. Don’t overestimate the savings (on your electricity bill) that you can make by going from 80 Plus Bronze to even Titanium. You can assume that the build quality of a more expensive PSUs will be higher, but the differences in efficiency are not that significant. So, summing it up, an 80 Plus Gold PSU like the Deepcool DQ850-M-V2L reviewed here is a good solution. The price is 129.99 USD for the 850 W variant, which is really reasonable. 

Stability

There really isn’t much to say about stability. The voltages hold, and this doesn’t change under higher loads. The 850 W version should be enough even for dual-GPU setups with cards like an Nvidia Geforce GTX/RTX 1080/2080 or a single GPU like an RTX 2080 Ti.

Aesthetics

The Deepcool PSU looks nice with its all-black cabling. The DQ850-M-V2L’s solution with modular cables lets you plug in only the leads that you really need, and this will certainly improve the looks of your build. Additionally, this makes the installation process is quite simple.

Final words

The DQ850-M-V2L retails at 129.99 USD, which is a fair price. The unit is mostly black, but there are grey and green accents, which make it look quite original but still sleek. Nowadays, it will probably be hidden inside the chassis shroud anyway, so this is not really an important factor. The DQ850-M-V2L offers good build quality. The efficiency is as it should be according to the standards (80 Plus Gold). You also get a 10-year warranty, which is something new for Deepcool and brings its offer in that department up to par with brands like Corsair and Seasonic. Their engineers are clearly really confident about the quality. On the other side, you get poor acoustics (the noise should be much lower at low/mid load).  What could we suggest? Maybe going with a 135-140 mm fan with a Fluid Dynamic Bearing? Another thing to consider for the future – a semi-passive mode (even something like 20-25% of the max wattage threshold would be a nice addition), but for sure set the fan curve lower. Overall, we think that this PSU has nothing that would make it stand out from the crowd, still, this power supply is a good product that ticks nearly all the boxes, but not enough to give a recommendation.

• Sign up to receive a notification when we publish a new article
• Or go back to Guru3D's front page