Seasonic Focus GX-850 PSU review
We take a gander at this 850W power supply from the well known PSU manufacturer
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Seasonic are a big name in the power supply game, and the Focus GX-850 is a 850W entry to the range that was released in 2023. With a gold rating in efficiency we expect this particular unit to be at least half-decent. Let’s see how it measures up!
- Wattage: 850W
- Modularity: Fully modular
- Efficiency rating: Gold
- Compliance/compatibility: ATX12V, PCIe 5.0
- Dimensions: 150 x 86 x 140mm
- Weight: 1.6kgg/3.52lb
An efficient power supply that isn’t too noisy, the Seasonic Focus GX-850 comes with the latest hardware needed to run the latest Nvidia 40-series GPUs. The standard MSRP is a bit high, but you can find them on offer for a massively reduced price. The primary downside is the included cabling, which is a bit cumbersome and short in places, so if you don’t have alternative cabling you should bear this in mind.
- Great energy efficiency
- Great 10 year warranty
- Fully modular & supports hybrid mode for silent running
- Included power connectors are bulky
- Short distances between the peripheral connectors on the same cable
Pricing
The current MSRP for the Seasonic FOCUS GX-850 V2 is around $160, which is a bit pricey compared to models by competing brands like the Corsair RM850e, however we’ve seen it reduced on Amazon to around the $105 mark, which if you can get it is an absolute bargain.
Design
The Focus GX-850 has a pretty standard design overall. As is typical among most PSUs of this generation and price bracket, it has a 120mm fluid dynamic bearing fan.
ATX 3.0 support and the latest PCIe 5 standard allows you to use the latest gen video cards natively with this PSU, without an adapter. You get a good array of cables including a 16-pin connector, however it’s with the cables that our main critiques of this PSU lies with. First off all the cables are notably bulky, making cable management a bit of a pain, secondly we found that some of the peripheral connectors had quite a short distance between them on the same cable, meaning they didn’t always stretch the required length in our build. Thankfully the GX-850 is fully modular, so you can swap out these cables with some of your own should you have them, though this is obviously less than ideal.
In terms of how it looks, this isn’t really of great importance for a PSU as far as we’re concerned, given you’ll rarely see it in a completed build, but the Focus GX-850 has quite an interesting off-black with gold accents design, along with the white lettering on the ‘Focus’ logo.
Size & compatibility
The Focus GX-850 is your standard ATX-size PSU, which will fit in any mid-tower sized case or larger model, though wil likely be too big for any small form factor case.
It’s always a good idea to measure the case against the PSU to be on the safe side of course. The specific dimensions of the GX-850 are as follows: 140 x 150 x 86mm.
Sound & efficiency
The Seasonic Focus GX-850 is gold-rated under both the 80 Plus and Cybernetics Labs standards of power efficiency. A gold-rated PSU is pretty much the (apologies in advance) gold-standard for a custom PC build. You can get higher-rated models but this will likely be overkill for most consumers.
Looking at the specific results of the Cybernetics testing, when tested at 115V the GX-850 achieved 88.845% with the 5VSB average reaching 80.848%. At 230V this increased to 90.962%, with the 5VSB average hitting 79.360%.
Sound performance is about average for a PSU in this price range: at 115V it achieved an average of around 30.73 dB(A) and at 230V an average of 30.82 dB(A) was measured, earning it a Standard ++ rating from Cybernetics.
Warranty & Support
You get a nice long 10-year warranty with this particular Seasonic PSU, which is as long as you’ll realistically need and is the best you’ll find for a gold-rated power supply. This gives you an ample time window for any future upgrades to your build that you can use with the same 850W power supply, plus piece of mind if you have any issues.
Seasonic Focus GX-850 PSU
