Hey guys,

I am back with yet another review for you guys. Today we are taking a look at Tagan’s BZ 1300W power supply unit.

Power supply is heart of a computer system, and having a power supply that provides enough and clean power is very critical. Your entire system’s health and longevity depends on the power supply. This particular power supply is top of the line enthusiast segment offering from Tagan meant for power users.

Tagan is one of the few companies who rely on in house design and do not just buy the power supply from OEM suppliers and put their sticker on the product. They actually do design and make their own power supplies. And the company was founded by few enthusiasts just like us who one day met at Computex event in Taipei.







Anyways let’s move onto the things that really matter.



[BREAK=Features & Specifications]



Features





• Six independent Rail Design

• Automatic Turbo Mode

• Modular Design

• Patented “PipeRock” connectors.

• Tagan Silent Control Technology ensuring <25db PSU operation.

• 80%+ efficiency

• Made for gamers

• Active PFC

• TUV, UL, CE, CB, FCC, Semko, Nemko, Demko, Fimko certified

• Short circuit, over voltage, over current protection







Specifications



This PSU has six independent voltage rails each rater at 20A with maximum of 92 amps on all 12 rails. The interesting thing about this is the auto turbo mode. Lower end Tagan BZ series have a physical slider to put the PSU in turbo mode. This one has auto turbo. This was first seen in Tagan’s ITZ series 1300W power supply last year. Turbo mode basically combines all the voltage rails to give more power to the component that demands it.



In short this eliminates the situation where because of 1 rain limitation, you are left with no juice for a particular component that is demanding more amps than 1 rail can offer. On BZ 1300, the PSU automatically goes in turbo mode and gives max of 92Amps when and if needed on 12v line. This is triggered automatically when 12v1 rail demands more than 28Amps. This is exactly what we saw in the ITZ series from Tagan last year.



Here are the voltage rail specifications







[BREAK=The Package]



The package



Package Details









The Box







This Power supply shipped in Typical Tagan BZ series packaging. The PSU ships in exactly same packaging to that of Tagan BZ 800w which I use in my test setup normally. It’s a nice big cube box.





Specifications On the Box.







The side of the box has clear mention of what is included with the package and all relevant specifications and features.





Power Supply Package







The power supply itself is wrapped in bubble wrap and a soft nylon bag to avoid any scratches while in transport and shipping.





[BREAK=The Power Supply]







The Power Supply Unit







The unit is completely black and is sports single 135mm fan which is dead silent.



Rating Label.





All the voltage rail ratings are on the power supply as well.







The model name is printed on the other side.





The Back







At the back you have the power cable socket and simple On-off button. The hot air escapes through the hexagonal mesh. Hexagonal shape offers maximum area for air to escape by occupying least amount of area by solid metal.



Piperock connectors.







This power supply has 8 modular connectors. All of them are colour coded to avoid any confusion. As insurance policy, they have labeled them as well. Those red rings around cables are LED lit and glow once power supply is switched on.



[BREAK=Cables and Accessories]



Attached onboard Cables







This power supply is also little different than other lower BZ series power supplies. This power supply is 3 way SLI / CrossfireX ready. This means, it ships with total of 6 PCI express power connectors. Two of them are not part of modular piperock cables. As you can see in the picture above, they are part of onboard permanently attached cables.

Other onboard cables include ATX 24 pin power, EPS 12v, 1x Molex 4 pin, 1x 4 pin motherboard 12v and grounding wire. All PCI express cables are shielded and have ferrite core for additional noise filtering.





The accessory pouch.







Rest of the modular cables and accessories ship in nice nylon pouch. This is trademark packaging Tagan uses on all its BZ series power supplies.





The cables







As I mentioned above, this Power supply is 3 way SLI and crossfireX ready having 6 PCI express power connectors. The 2 are attached and remaining 4 are modular as you can see. You get plenty of SATA and molex connectors. In fact you get 12 SATA connectors and 6 molex. All of them are modular. You also get a mains power cable in the bundle. All modular power cables are also colour coded so that user knows which cables are suppose to go where easily. Here is detailed description and cable lengths of all the included cables.









Accessories







Along with all the cables, you get few goodies as well. You get the rubber grommet that fits around the power supply and comes between the power supply and case. This is provided to avoid those annoying rattling vibration noises.

You also get a Velcro cable ties, 2 nylon cable ties, screws, a screw driver and pair of anti static gloves to protect your hands and hardware as well. There is a manual and case badge as well in the package.

Also you get a 4 black SATA to molex converters just in case you want more molex connectors to power those high CFM fans. And no need to worry about lack of floppy power connectors. If you still use prehistoric FDD, you do get molex to FDD adapter cable.



All these are little things adds good value to the bundle. It’s all about attention to details. This is high end power supply and this is really nice touch to the whole bundle.



[BREAK=The test setup and equipments and How we tested]



The test setup and equipments and How we tested





This will be real world test. I threw every power hungry component I had at this power supply. The test configuration included following things.



Motherboards: Intel X58SO, Asus Maximus II formula

Processors: Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition. Intel C2D E8600

HDDs: 7 SATA II hdds were connected to the setup

Optical Drive: Samsung SH 223

Fans: 6 x 120mm, 3.76w each.

Graphics Cards: Palit Revolution 700 Deluxe (4870x2) + Palit HD4870 in 3GPU CrossfireX



Like I mentioned before. I threw absolutely everything I had at this system. 2 systems including the new power hungry Intel i7 965XE which was overclocked to 4Ghz. All power saving features were turned off and power plan was changed to high performance in Windows Vista. There was no considerable different in voltages on both the platforms. The readings were consistent. And with 3 very power hungry cards in the system, you couldn’t ask for anything more.

To load the system, I used combination of different programs as you will see in voltage charts. The voltages were tested during the gaming, synthetic benchmarks, CPU stress testing and idle conditions.



Let’s move onto the test results.



[BREAK=Test Results]

Test Results





All the readings were taken by Uni T digital multimeter. The 4870x2 + 4870 crossfire does not work in all the applications, but it does work in some games like Far Cry 2. That’s the reason why I choose that game to ensure all GPUs are getting loaded.

Here are the results.



+12v Voltage









+5v Voltage











+3.3v Voltage











As you can see, the rails were absolutely stable with no fluttering or jumping up and down. The idle to load voltage drop was minimal.



Overall, it handled the rig pretty well and without any issues. I know this system does not even cross half the rated output wattage of this power supply. But then again, you won’t get much more powerful system than this. And even if you do, the PSU will definitely handle it with ease.





[BREAK=Final Words]

Final words



There were no surprises here. I expected this power supply to perform good. I have been using the smaller brother of this one ( Tagan BZ 800w ) myself for quite a while now. And it has proved its worth. And I expected good results from BZ 1300 as well.



And it didn’t disappoint. It has everything you want from a good power supply. It has modular design, its silent, it’s not very large like some other 1kw+ power supplies, and it performs well.



Tagan has paid attention to small things like bundled items, packaging, the modular power connectors, colour coding etc. And to top all this, it is not the most expensive power supply in its category. This power supply retails at $499 on newegg but can be found for US$370 elsewhere.



Now the Indian MRP is Rs.16900/- So by the international standards, this is good pricing for power supply for this. You might even find better pricing in shops.



So considering everything, it makes for a top quality power supply for the power user. There is not much to complain about this power supply. In fact, I can’t find anything to complain about. Sure Tagan is still considered as 2nd Tier manufacturer, but from their track record for last 2 years or so, they have proved themselves by delivering some really quality power supply units. This one definitely gets my vote.



If you want the power supply that will be able to power any desktop configuration out there today and for some time to come and have the money, you can safely spend it on this power supply.







Pros

• Performance
  
• Looks
  
• Bundle
  
• Modular
  
• Silent
  
• Good built Quality
  
• Shielded Cables
  
• Colour coded cables
  

Cons

• Nothing really, its just heavy on pocket, but its not an ordinary power supply as well.
  

My Score Card

Built Quality: 9/10

Performance: 9.5/10

Bundle: 9.5/10

Price: 8.5/10

Overall: 9/10

Thanks to Tagan for making this wonderful power supply available for the review here at techenclave.



Please Digg this Review here : Digg - Tagan BZ 1300W Power Supply Review

who needs that much of power???