First Look: Seasonic M12D 850W PSU

For ripple reduction, Seasonic M12D mirrors the same technique used by both the upcoming Enermax Revolution 85+ and Antec Signature in that it has ferrite rings around the feet of a couple of the PFC diodes. The soldering quality is generally very good and everything we tried to move inside, bar a few smaller capacitors, was very firmly held in place.


Unlike Enermax's new Revolution 85+ that does the DC-DC conversion on the actual modular PCB section itself, down the back of Seasonic's M12D modular PCB there's just a few capacitors glued in place instead.

First Impressions

We'll obviously hold off with our final yay or nay until we can stress test the bits off it to test how it copes with load, efficiency, PFC and noise levels in comparison to other PSUs. We did test it for a short while with a Core i7 system and two GeForce GTX 280 in SLI, the unit remained cool and very quiet, however even that high end PC won't seriously stretch an 850W PSU.

From the outside, it looks like Seasonic has done everything right - a variety of modular cable lengths with good connector choices and lower resistance, thicker cabling where it matters, a fantastic fan and 80Plus Silver certification. If we nit-pick, then the braiding isn't perfect and we'd like to have seen a second 4+4-pin EPS12V instead of just a 4-pin, but other than that we're finding it hard to give fault. I suppose it's a little unspectacular on the surface, but then it's no different from an Antec Signature or OCZ EliteXStream - it's what is inside that counts anyway.

We've no UK price yet, but apparently it's meant to retail nearer $300 which is a hefty sum to part with for even the most hardened Seasonic fanboy. That's not to say other premium PSUs like the Cooler Master Ultimate UCP 900W and Antec Signature 850W are that much less expensive - although whether you get appreciably $20-30 more for the Seasonic than the Antec for example, is difficult to ascertain and down to personal opinion.

The bottom line is that we've reached a bit of a plateau in the level of quality of super high efficiency, premium quality PSUs. A purchase of any of these three yields a solid investment, there's no doubt about that, and only the most anal people will want to argue the toss about differences that are never going to be noticeable. The truth of the matter is that the Seasonic M12D 850W PSU appears to fit the mould of an excellent premium product very nicely, and even though it's a few months late to the game, its brand name alone will cause a few people to investigate this as an upgrade worthy of investment.