Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

The Seasonic Connect series is a great addition to the market. It’s based on the revised Focus platform (although Seasonic calls it Prime), and is 80 plus Gold certified. It comes with a 10-year warranty. It’s also nice that 105°C-rated capacitors have been used. Seasonic introduced the Connect module here. Was it a good idea? It was a brave one, for sure. Well, the concept is very good and unique, and this solution should make it possible. All you need is to have more than 20 mm clearance behind the motherboard tray (it’s best to have 28 mm, which is not the standard). If that requirement is fulfilled, then the installation should go smoothly. Splitting the main unit from the connection module allowed Seasonic to achieve more clearance for the PSU's internals, which provides better airflow there. Even the 750 W variant should be enough for most users with a single graphics card in their systems. In reality, a setup like the one used for the daily testing (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 excellent, and there was no noticeable droop on the +5V and +12V rails. Ripple suppression is well below tolerance levels. The 135 mm fan does its job well. It becomes audible close to 75% load, so there’s some room for improvement there (maybe in another revision?).

You can clearly see that Seasonic engineers have done a tremendous job with this PSU, took full advantage of the concept, and really made it work as it should! As a bonus, you get a nice set of accessories, including mounting screws, Velcro straps, a bag for the cables, a manual, etc.

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 Seasonic CONNECT achieved a bit over 90% (at 230 Volts). In the case of this particular unit, half of the maximum wattage is 375 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 (electric 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 Seasonic Connect reviewed here is a perfect solution. The price is about 169.99 USD for the 750 W variant, which is really reasonable.

Stability

There really isn’t much to say about stability. The voltages hold even under higher loads. The 750 W version should be enough even for dual-GPU setups with cards like an Nvidia Geforce GTX/RTX 1070/2070 or single GPU like RTX 2080 Ti.

Aesthetics

The Seasonic PSU looks very nice with its all-black cabling. The Connect 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 Connect retails at 169.99 USD, which is a good price, and only a 20 USD premium over the similar Prime 750 W Gold model (although the internals of the Connect is actually closer to the Focus series, which is still good). It offers sleek looks, even though nowadays it’s most likely to be hidden inside a shroud, good acoustics (could have been a bit better at 75%+ load), and very good build quality. The efficiency is like it should be (80 Plus Gold). You also get a 10-year warranty and a nice set of accessories. Implementation of the Connect module leaves almost nothing to be desired, except maybe for slightly improved compatibility (a bit thinner module if possible). The fan’s RPMs also could use a bit of optimization for higher loads, as it becomes audible close to 75% of the rated wattage. Other than that, we do recommend this PSU. It’s an innovative, quality product at a good price. All things considered, remember to check the clearance behind your motherboard tray as you will need a bit of space..

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