MSI MPG A1000G PCIE 5 PSU Review

A while back, we had the opportunity to take a look at MSI’s MEG A1300P power supply, the company’s latest flagship PSU. Besides offering plenty of power, the MEG Ai1300P was also MSI’s first ATX 3.0 power supplies – and one of the first ATX 3.0 PSUs on the market overall. And while it was admittedly not a groundbreaking design overall, it was still a seminal work of sorts, sketching out a rough picture of what we should expect from other ATX 3.0 PSU designs, including MSI’s own.

The MEG Ai1300P was a true flagship PSU, for all the pros and cons that come with that. As impressive as it was overall, it was also aimed at those willing and able to deal with the hefty price tag. This is all well and good for the small fraction of the market that can afford such a high caliber PSU, but for most PC builders, budgets are a very real thing.

So, for today’s review, we are taking a look at something a little more downmarket from MSI: their MPG series. Like their flagship units, the new MPG PSUs are also are ATX 3.0 Ready, but they come at more reasonable prices. Despite that shift, the unit we’re testing today, the MPG A1000G, is still one of the most powerful PSUs MSI offers (as well as being the top MPG unit), capable of delivering a kilowatt of PC power.

All of this marks a rather rapid ascent in the PSU space for MSI. The company released its first PSU just two years ago with the MPG GF series, which were primarily designed for gaming computers. Even though MSI stepped into a highly competitive and rather saturated market, the release of the MPG series was yet another success for the company, which MSI is hoping to further build upon with their new PCIE5-branded MPG units.

Specifications and Design

In the Box

We received the MPG A1000G PCIE5 in a sturdy cardboard box with basic geometric artwork printed on it. The front of the box is mostly occupied by a picture of the unit itself but abundant information is printed on the sides and rear of the box. Inside the box, the unit is well-packed inside soft packaging foam, ensuring safe shipping.

The bundle of the MPG A1000G PCIE is extremely frugal, with MSI supplying only the necessary AC power cable – ours came with a matching Schuko cable for our region – as well as four black mounting screws. There are zero accessories of any kind supplied with this unit.

The MPG A1000G PCIE PSU is a fully modular design, allowing for the removal of every DC power cable, including the 24-pin ATX connector. Most of the cables have individually sleeved black wires and with black connectors. Only the 16-pin PCIe 5.0 cable and one cable with two PCIe 8-pin connectors have black wires but are wrapped in a single sleeve.

External Appearance

MSI is a company that invests a lot of resources in the external appearance of its products and that includes its PSUs. Much like the MEG series unit that we reviewed a few weeks back, the MPG series is using a proprietary chassis with embossed geometrical shapes. The design is very similar to that of the MEG series but not quite the same – the golden accents are now silver and some geometrical decorations differ, with the MPG having only rectangular patterns and no triangular shapes. The PSU is just 150 mm long, making it only slightly longer than what the ATX standard dictates, yet it remains short enough to ensure its compatibility with all but the smallest ATX-compliant cases.

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The sticker with the unit’s electrical certifications and specifications can be found on the otherwise plain top side of the PSU. Decorative silver and black metallic plates can be found on the sides of the unit, which plates are magnetically attached and can be flipped to match the installation orientation of the PSU.

At the rear side of the unit, right next to the AC power connector and the basic on/off switch, there is a latching push button that controls the “zero-fan mode”. As the name suggests, this mode allows for passive operation while the PSU’s load is low – a frequently applied technique by many manufacturers nowadays. Disabling it will force the fan to continuously spin as long as the PSU is powered on, but its speed will still be controlled thermally.

The front side of the unit is host to the numerous connectors for the modular cables. A subtle legend is printed directly on the chassis.

Internal Design

The cooling fan of the MPG A1000G PCIE5 is a 135 mm model by Hong Hua, a rather popular manufacturer whose fans we frequently see in quality PC PSUs. The HA13525H12SF-Z is a fan that satisfies the cooling needs of the MPG A1000G PCIE5, though it is a very high-speed fan for its size, with a maximum speed of 2300 RPM. It has a fluid dynamic bearing (FDB) engine that provides excellent longevity.

The OEM whose platform the MPG A1000G PCIE5 is based upon is Channel-Well Technologies, or CWT. CWT is a popular OEM for mid-to-high performance PSUs and they also are the OEM behind MSI’s flagship MEG series. The MPG A1000G PCIE5 is based on a different platform than that used for the MEG series, which seems to be an upgraded version of one of the CWT’s most popular platforms. This platform has been the heart of many units having a similar power output over the past few years. In order to fit the 135 mm fan in the 150 mm chassis, CWT cleverly shortened the vertical daughterboards to provide enough clearance.

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Overall, the MPG A1000G PCIE5 looks very crowded because of its very high power density – the layout is fairly simple. The filtering stage is typical, with four Y capacitors, two X capacitors, and two filtering inductors. The filtering stage leads to two large rectifying bridges, which are placed on their own sizable heatsink. The passive components of the APFC circuitry are a humongous 400V/820μF APFC capacitor Nichicon and an equally large encased filtering inductor. The active APFC components are on the longest heatsink of the unit.

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Two transistors can be found on their own heatsink, forming a typical half-bridge inversion topology on the primary side of the unit’s main transformer. The output of the main transformer is connected to eight power MOSFETs that generate a single 12V rail, which is placed on a vertical daughterboard. The 3.3V and 5V lines are being generated via DC-to-DC conversion circuitry that can be found on the subsequent vertical daughterboard. The secondary side capacitors are all made by Nippon Chemi-Con and Nichicon, or their subsidiary companies, making this PSU an all-Japanese affair.

Cold Test Results

Cold Test Results (25°C Ambient)

For the testing of PSUs, we are using high precision electronic loads with a maximum power draw of 2700 Watts, a Rigol DS5042M 40 MHz oscilloscope, an Extech 380803 power analyzer, two high precision UNI-T UT-325 digital thermometers, an Extech HD600 SPL meter, a self-designed hotbox and various other bits and parts.

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When the load is relatively low, the conversion efficiency of the MSI MPG A1000G PCIE5 is wondrously high for an 80Plus Gold certified product, especially while the unit is powered by an 115 VAC source. If not for the swift decline at loads greater than 600 Watts, this unit might have gotten an 80Plus Platinum certification instead. At very low loads, the MPG A1000G PCIE actually is more efficient if powered from an 115 VAC source but, as it usually is the case with such switching-mode power supplies, the average efficiency is significantly higher when the input voltage is 230 VAC. The average nominal load efficiency (20% to 100% of the unit’s capacity) is 91.0% with the unit powered from a 230 VAC source, and drops down to 90.1% if the unit is powered by a 115 VAC source.

We performed our testing with the “Zero Fan” mode of the unit disabled, forcing the fan to spin regardless of the load. As we suspected, despite that the fan was spinning, the MPG A1000G PCIE is practically inaudible while the load is lower than about 350 Watts. The high low load conversion efficiency of the unit helps with that, as thermal losses are fairly low and the large fan easily copes with them. The thermal control circuitry reacts very aggressively though and will speed up the fan sharply once the internal temperatures of the unit increase. As such, the MPG A1000G PCIE becomes clearly audible at loads between 50% and 70%. If the load is greater than 700 Watts, the speed of the fan increases very sharply and makes the MPG A1000G PCIE quite loud.

Hot Test Results

Hot Test Results (~45°C Ambient)

The MSI MPG A1000G PCIE resists high ambient temperatures well enough for an 80Plus Gold certified unit, with an average efficiency degradation of 0.65% across the nominal load range. However, the degradation while the unit is very heavily loaded is high, at over 1.5%, suggesting very high thermal stress.

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Due to the aggressive cooling profile, the internal temperatures of the MSI MPG A1000G PCIE are quite low for a unit with that kind of power output. The thermal losses of this PSU at maximum load are over 125 Watts, with the fan giving its all by the time the load is at 80% of the unit’s capacity, and even then the component temperatures are of the lowest we have seen in products of similar class and power output. The irregular observation here is that there is a sharp efficiency drop at maximum load while the PSU’s primary components are not too hot. We ruled out the common culprit which is undersized components, as the components used in the MPG A1000G are more than capable of delivering the required currents, as well as the possibility of a poorly attached part to its heatsink that would cause a massive hot spot. That implies that the MPG A1000G PCIE simply is based on a platform strongly optimized for low-end performance, or that the platform was not originally meant to be used for 1+ kW units.

As we mentioned above, the internal temperatures of the MSI MPG A1000G PCIE are quite low for a product of its class and power output. The culprit behind this is the aggressive cooling profile and the large Hong Hua 135 mm fan. With the PSU operating inside our hotbox, the unit is relatively quiet while the load is very low, with the fan’s speed increasing almost linearly alongside with the load if the latter is greater than 200 Watts. The controller had the fan running at maximum speed by the time the load was 800 Watts, making the MPG A1000G PCIE5 annoyingly loud. Typical PCs (at least not those available today) will not continuously draw that kind of power from the PSU but it can become a problem under certain usage scenarios.

PSU Quality and Bottom Line

Power Supply Quality

As part of our testing, we also check output parameters are within specifications, as well as voltage ripple and line noise.

The electrical performance of the MSI MPG A1000G PCIE5 PSU is surprisingly good for a PSU of this class. As a matter of fact, the MPG A1000G theoretically provides better power quality than its otherwise superior MEG Ai1300P. Though such a comparison is not entirely fair due to the 30% greater power output of the latter.

Nevertheless, our instruments recorded a maximum ripple of 22 mV on the 12V line with a recommended design limit of 120 mV, a very low figure for any PC PSU. The filtering of the minor voltage lines is equally good, with a maximum of 10 mV and 12 mV on the 3.3V and 5V lines respectively. Voltage regulation is very tight on the 12V line, at less than 0.8%. It is not as tight on the minor voltage lines, where the regulation is at about 1.5%, but that still is a good performance figure.

As part of our standard testing, we test the primary protections of all PSUs we review (Over Current, Over Voltage, Over Power, and Short Circuit). The MSI MPG A1000G PCIE5 successfully passed all of the tests, as in all of the protections do work. The OCP protection is set very high though, with our testing reaching over 140% current on any voltage line for several seconds before the unit shuts down. Similarly, the OPP protection also is high, as we drew over 1300 Watts from the MPG A1000G PCIE5 before it decided to shut down. These high figures clearly are due to the tweaks that give the MPG A1000G PCIE5 its ATX 3.0 compatibility, as the engineers had to ensure that the unit would not be shutting down due to power excursions that need to be met for ATX 3.0 compliance.

Bottom Line

Unlike halo products which frequently compete in terms of innovation and/or performance – and where value is a secondary concern – the MPG A1000G PCIE5 is targeted towards a market segment where users weigh every factor, with price being one of the most important. In configuring their new PSU, MSI had to convince users that the MPG A1000G PCIE5 can offer good all-around performance and long-term reliability, while also offering it at a competitive price. Otherwise it would not stand a chance in the mainstream market, even at the highest layers of it.

MSI can certainly boast about the quality of the MPG A1000G PCIE5. Despite the relatively simple topology and the use of mid-range active components, each and every component found in the unit is of top quality. CWT did an excellent job designing this platform and layout too. It is very crowded and probably disadvantageous for the manufacturer themselves, but it manages to offer enough clearance for a 135 mm fan to fit and still the heatsinks are sizable, which plays a major role in the thermal performance and long-term reliability of the PSU.

In terms of performance, the MSI MPG A1000G PCIE5 did very well, perhaps even a little better than what we usually expect such a product to reach. It delivers exceptional power quality, with minimal voltage fluctuations across the entire load range. The energy conversion efficiency is stellar at low loads but drops sharply at high loads, resulting in the 80Plus Gold certification. It also runs relatively cool, which is a very good thing for the long-term reliability of any such design. The only weak link here is the aggressive cooling profile – on one hand, it is responsible for keeping the operating temperatures very low but, on the other hand, it also makes the MPG A1000G PCIE5 run loud when having to cope with loads greater than 500 Watts. Our only true concern lies with the very slack OCP/OPP protections – they do work but these seem to be set a little too high, which limits the unit’s ability to timely react to a real fault and properly protect the rest of the equipment.

In summary, the MSI MPG A1000G PCIE5 is a fairly well-balanced product for users who want to buy a powerful PSU that will last them for many years to come. Even if purchasing a video card with a 12VHPWR connector is not in a user’s immediate plans, the ATX 3.0 compliance ensures that the PSU will not be rendered obsolete if a user later upgrades to one. The current street price of $180 is the Achille’s heel of this unit – it may entice users who want to purchase a high-quality and relatively future-proof product but it is difficult to recommend this particular unit over significantly cheaper alternatives.

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