PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 860W PSU Review

AC Ripple and Power Factor

AC Ripple and Noise on the DC Outputs

The amount of AC ripple and noise present on the DC outputs was checked using an oscilloscope.  This AC component may be present in the KHz range where most switching power supplies operate or it may be more prevalent at the 60 Hz line frequency.  I adjusted the O-scope time base to look for AC ripple at both low and high frequencies. 

The ATX12V V2.2 specification for DC output noise/ripple is defined in the ATX12V Power Supply Design Guide.


Ideally we would like to see no AC ripple (repetitive) or noise (random) on the DC outputs – the cleaner the better!  But in reality there will always be some present.  I measured the amplitude of the AC signal (in millivolts, peak-to-peak) to see how well the power supply complied with the ATX standard.  The following table lists the ripple/noise results during all of the load tests for the four main output voltages of interest.


The Turbo-Cool 860W power supply exhibited very good AC ripple suppression across the entire load range.  All of the outputs stayed well under control and even though the +12V waveform became more active under full load it was still less than 50% of the max spec (but not quite as low as we saw on the larger Turbo-Cool 1200W PSU). 

Power Factor (PF)

Power factor is defined as the ratio of true power (measured in watts) to apparent power (measured in Volt Amps).  It measures how effectively AC power is being used by a device.  The difference between true power and apparent power is expressed as the power factor and results from the way true power and apparent power are measured.  Ideally we would like to have true power and apparent power equal to one another, which would result in a PF of 1.00 or 100% effective power utilization.



Purely Resistive AC Load: VA = Watts (same as DC circuits)
Inductive/Reactive AC Load: VA x PF = Watts


I measured the AC Power Factor with an Extech power analyzer at both 115 VAC and 240 VAC input voltages.  The Turbo-Cool 860W power supply uses Active PFC circuits so as expected; the majority of readings were close to 1.0. 


Note: A power supply with active PFC is more environmentally friendly (doesn’t pollute the AC transmission grid with harmonics) and will draw less current, but it will not save you money on your monthly electric bill unless you are a commercial user whose bill is based on PF and usage.