BFG ES-800 Power Supply Review

[Hardware Secrets Team]

There has been a new article posted.

Title: BFG ES-800 Power Supply Review
URL: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/745

Here is a snippet:
"ES-800 (also known as BFGR800WESPSU) is a power supply using a different internal design called "frequency conversion", with BFG claiming it provides higher efficiency even under very low loads. Is th..."

Comments on this article are welcome.

Best regards,
Hardware Secrets Team
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com

[rben13]

I've had two of these PSU's and finally had to replace the unit with a Corsair HX850. The 12V was consistently low and my computer had all kinds of wierd intermittent problems that most people told me were probably the result of noise on the 12V line.

While the Tech support at BFG tried to be helpful, what can they do except keep sending you new PSUs? I wish I could say something nice, because they did try to help, but this product just doesn't do what it's supposed to.

I had to pay more for the Corsair, but it was worth it. The modular cables were especially nice.

BTW, this site was especially helpful in educating me about PSUs, which led to me getting the right one for my system.

[Travis]

The primary is not double-forward but HB-SRC(half-bridge series resonant converter). You can check the routing between main switchers and the main transformer, I believe it's in half-bridge not the double-forward configuration.

[Olle P]

I spotted a typo on page 9.
There it says this PSU does have modular cabling.

Cheers
Olle

[jolphil]

Hi again,
Many many years ago I used to design switching power supplies and DC/DC converters for use in aerospace telemetry industry..In general what we found was that most ripple spikes were caused by the rectifier diodes..Diodes in those days could turn on very fast but in order to turn off they had to expell the stored charge..What this meant was that during the transition time,
the one diode turned on, but the other diode was still on presenting a short across the secondary of the transformer..Of course this was not with Schottkey rectifiers which are orders of magnitude faster today..
I do not know if this helps explain anything but I just read your test of a 800Watt BFG supply with high ripple..Filtering helps but faster rectifiers in reverse recovery helps even more..
Maybe thats why i love these reviews..Hahaha
Keep up the good work
jolphil

[Gabriel Torres]

Originally Posted by rben13

BTW, this site was especially helpful in educating me about PSUs, which led to me getting the right one for my system.

Thanks, that is what we are here for. The problem you describe matches what we found out about this power supply while testing it.

Cheers,
Gabriel.

[Gabriel Torres]

Originally Posted by Olle P

I spotted a typo on page 9.
There it says this PSU does have modular cabling.

Fixed, thanks.

[Gabriel Torres]

Originally Posted by jolphil

Hi again,
Many many years ago I used to design switching power supplies and DC/DC converters for use in aerospace telemetry industry..In general what we found was that most ripple spikes were caused by the rectifier diodes..Diodes in those days could turn on very fast but in order to turn off they had to expell the stored charge..What this meant was that during the transition time,
the one diode turned on, but the other diode was still on presenting a short across the secondary of the transformer..Of course this was not with Schottkey rectifiers which are orders of magnitude faster today..
I do not know if this helps explain anything but I just read your test of a 800Watt BFG supply with high ripple..Filtering helps but faster rectifiers in reverse recovery helps even more..
Maybe thats why i love these reviews..Hahaha
Keep up the good work
jolphil

Thanks. In this particular case the high noise seems to be the result of the design Andyson/BFG chose for this power supply ("frequency conversion" or "half-bridge series resonant" as explained above by Travis Chen). This is the only PC power supply we've seen using such design to date.

Cheers,
Gabriel Torres

[Gabriel Torres]

Originally Posted by Travis

The primary is not double-forward but HB-SRC(half-bridge series resonant converter). You can check the routing between main switchers and the main transformer, I believe it's in half-bridge not the double-forward configuration.

You are absolutely right and this explains the presence of a coil that I couldn't understand the use until your message! Thanks, I am updating the text.

Cheers,
Gabriel.