Asus ROG Strix 650W Power Supply Review

The Asus ROG Strix 650W is a strong but costly power supply.

Asus ROG Strix 650W
(Image: © Asus)

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Protection Features

Check out our PSUs 101 article to learn more about PSU protection features.

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Protection Features

 

OCP

12V: 71.4A (133.22%), 12.082V 5V: 28.3A (141.5%), 4.976V 3.3V: 27.3A (136.5%), 3.295V 5VSB: 6.3A (210%), 4.991V

OPP

870.1W (133.86%)

OTP

✓ (112°C @ 12V Heat Sink)

SCP

12V: ✓ 5V: ✓ 3.3V: ✓ 5VSB: ✓ -12V: ✓

PWR_OK

Proper operation

NLO

SIP

Surge: MOV Inrush: NTC Thermistor & Bypass Relay

The OCP at +12V is close to the ideal setting (130%), while on the minor rails, it is pretty high. The minor rails don't have to handle high loads, so it is not necessary to have such high OCP triggering points. Finally, the OPP is close to 130%, so it provides satisfactory protection.

The over-temperature protection has a low triggering point, given the PSU's semi-passive operation, but we didn't encounter any shutdowns during our load tests under high operating temperatures. 

DC Power Sequencing

According to Intel’s most recent Power Supply Design Guide (revision 1.4), the +12V and 5V outputs must be equal to or greater than the 3.3V rail at all times. Unfortunately, Intel doesn't mention why it is so important to always keep the 3.3V rail's voltage lower than the levels of the other two outputs.

The 3.3V rail is lower than the other two in all three tests, so everything is fine here. 

Cross Load Tests

To generate the following charts, we set our loaders to auto mode through custom-made software before trying more than 25,000 possible load combinations with the +12V, 5V, and 3.3V rails. The deviations in each of the charts below are calculated by taking the nominal values of the rails (12V, 5V, and 3.3V) as point zero. The ambient temperature during testing was between 30 to 32 degrees Celsius (86 to 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Load Regulation Charts

Efficiency Chart

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Ripple Charts

The lower the power supply's ripple, the more stable the system will be and less stress will also be applied to its components.

Infrared Images

We apply a half-load for 10 minutes with the PSU's top cover and cooling fan removed before taking photos with a modified FLIR E4 camera able to deliver an IR resolution of 320x240 (76,800 pixels).

Despite the conditions that we applied, the temperatures remain at low enough levels. The large heat sinks do an excellent job and efficiently handle the not so high thermal loads.

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Aris Mpitziopoulos
Contributing Editor

Aris Mpitziopoulos is a contributing editor at Tom's Hardware, covering PSUs.