Evaluation and conclusion

The methodology of evaluation is once again published in an external article (czech only); the Huntkey FX500SE passed the load tests and passed them in compliance with the ATX specification, for that reason it earns its evaluation. The overall efficiency was wonderful, especially the efficiency of the +5 V SB rail was the highest I have seen so far, the rest starts at 85 % and even though does not rise as high as in the case of some competitive products, I think that over 90 % is very nice result for a 500W PSU.

It would not really be bad to tweak the ripple on +5 V and +5 V SB rails and also voltage regulation of +12 V rail. There is not much to point out for the rest of the PSU function-wise, problems are more regarded with the manufacturing quality. It is still very huge jump compared to what Huntkey produced even few years ago, but it still has some shortcomings. Huntkey should IMMEDIATELLY attend especially to:

• improvement of the construction/manufacturing quality of PSU's metal casing
• improvement of the soldering quality (no solder balls!!)
• using high-quality capacitor filtrating the PWM IC in +5 V SB rail
• sufficient insulation on the PFC coil wiring
• adding PCI Express connector(s)

If Huntkey does this, it won't have any problem to reach silver in my eyes just than. Next, I would strongly suggest another changes:

• adding IO for intelligent discharge of X capacitor(s)
• use of thicker wires at least for PCIe connectors
• mounting the +5 V rectifier to heatsink
• mounting AC power switch
• improving +12 V regulation and +5 V/+5 V SB ripple

If Huntkey even added these few shiny ones (even if that would mean to increase the price by 5-10 USD), than the FX500SE would have no problem getting gold from me:

• using peripheral molex connectors with unplugging clips
• golden-plating the connectors
• using heatshrink for additional insulation (thermistor, input plug etc.)
• using "teeth" drops for high-voltage spikes sparking

I concretely evaluate the Huntkey FX500SE with:

• components: 12 pts (+ for big input capacitor, + overspec'ed components, - for +5 V SB capacitor)
• built quality: 4,5 pts (- for worse cover quality, + think lacquering of the PCB, - for insufficient PFC coil insulation, - for solder balls)
• voltage regulation: -4 b (- for combined load, - for crossload)
• ripple: 8 b (- for combined load)
• efficiency: 12 b (+ for higher efficiency)
• price: 8,5 b (- for higher price per watt)
• others: 2,5 b (+ for high +5 V SB efficiency, + passive operation to high loads, + for velcro fasteners, + for box, + for load distribution :-), - for thinner cables, - for non gold-plated connectors)

  

Fors	+  high efficiency  +  passive operation up to high loads  +  all protections working great  +  higher, but still lower-than-usuall price for high-end  +  very overspec'ed and high-quality components used
Cons	−  worse +12 V voltage regulation  −  worse soldering quality (balls)  −  worse manufacturing quality of the metal casing  −  one bad capacitor  −  insufficient insulation of PFC coil
Watch…	/?\ number of PCIe connectors /?\ lack of AC power switch

Thanks

I thank the Huntkey company for the sample of Huntkey FX500SE.

Postscript

As I have noted here and there, in the case the Huntkey FX500SE makes impression on me, I will try to establish cooperation for distributing the Huntkey FX500SE in Central Europe. And it did. The power supply has few problems, on which I will intensively cooperate with Huntkey to get rid of (and I won't take the PSUs without correcting them), but even now it is very competitive product. If all the improvements will go well, it will be the very best power supply on the market for its price.