Fractal Design Edison M 750W Power Supply Review

Introduction & Closer Look

Today we will be taking a look at the Edison M 750W power supply from the guys over at Fractal Design. Fractal Design is of course from Sweden and has a passion for creating sleek, elegant and high performing products. The Edison M power supply range is no different as they not only come with an 80PLUS Gold efficiency rating but are based on Seasonic’s G series units. This of course means that the Edison M range features Seasonic as their OEM, one of the best power supply OEMs in the industry.

Taking a closer look at the Fractal Design Edison M 750W power supply, the first thing that springs to mind is ‘subtle’. The unit itself has an all-black design with the right-hand side (depends on the angle you look at it from) having a nice contrasting white Fractal Design logo centered in the middle of the panel. Also featured in the bottom right-hand corner is a gold Edison logo with the wattage positioned just above this; in the case of this particular sample, it’s 750W.

On the rear, the Edison M features a honeycomb styled mesh ventilation grille. Also present is a 3 pin kettle lead power input and a simple on and off switch.

Looking down at the top panel, we have an embossed Fractal Design snowflake logo which looks good; I have always been a fan of the subtle, yet easily recognisable Fractal snowflake! The dimensions of the Fractal Design Edison M 750W power supply are as follows: 150 x 86 x 160mm (W x H x L). This makes the Edison M suitable for cases that require a powerful unit, but one on the smaller side of the ATX PSU sizing spectrum.

The Fractal Design Edison M 750W power supply features a semi-modular design, which essentially means the core cables are hard wired into the unit. The front panel has a nicely described layout with each modular cable input clearly labelled for easy installation. The hard-wired cables feature a 24pin ATX cable with a plastic, but flexible mesh braiding; the other cables feature a conjoined ribbon design.

On the left-hand panel, we have the technical information which is usually contained on a label, but in this case, Fractal Design has printed it directly onto the unit itself. This includes the specifications on the different rails; the minor rails (3.3V/5V) feature up to 100w of power which is more than adequate and the 12V restricted to 744W.

Due to the Edison M unit being Seasonic OEM, Seasonic has opted for their regular Hong Hua manufactured fans and in this case, it’s a 120mm fluid dynamic bearing and a maximum speed of 2000RPM. It does look good and contrasts very nicely with the rest of the unit; black and white are one of the best contrasts you can get in my opinion.

The Fractal Design Edison M does come bundled with some accessories which include a pack of modular flat ribboned cables, a 3 pin (UK) kettle power lead, 4 case installation screws, some reusable Velcro cable ties, a user guide and a nice cloth zip corded carry bag.

The Edison M 750w power supply comes with the following cables:

Pre-Attached

1 x ATX 20+4 pin – 550mm
1 x ATX12V 4+4 pin – 700mm
1 x PCI-E 6+2 pin – 580 + 100mm

Modular

1 x EPS12 8 pin – 650mm
2 x PCI-e 6+2 pin – 550 + 100mm
2 x Peripheral – 400 + 120 + 120mm & 300 + 120mm
3 x SATA – 400 + 120 + 120 + 120mm x 2 & 650 + 120mm x 1

Plenty of available connectors for even the beefiest of SLI/CrossFire capable systems and with Seasonic OEM backing the unit it, it should easily handle the 750W recommended load and then some.

Now it’s time to see how the Fractal Design Edison M 750W semi-modular power supply handles our simple, yet effective testing method…but first, the specifications!

Fractal Design Edison M 750W Specifications

Performance

Since we don’t currently have access to an ATE load tester, a multi-meter is used to show each of the power supplies performance on the 3.3v, 5v, and 12v rails. Although we can’t do full load tests, we can provide relative information regarding variance and fluctuation of current and ripple on the rails which is integral and indicative of quality in a power supply.

To perform the above tests, the methodology will be as follows:

Intel Core i7 6700K @ 4.8GHz
ASUS Z170 Maximus VIII Hero Alpha
Gigabyte GTX 1060 G1 Gaming – Overclocked and power limit set to the maximum
Crucial (4x8gb) 32GB DDR4 Ballistix Elite 3000MHz
2 x 525GB Crucial MX300 SSDs

Voltages will be monitored via a multi-meter and the AC power draw will be monitored via a power monitor when drew from the wall. For the idle test, the system will be simply booted up and let to run into windows and after 5 minutes when the power draw has levelled out, the readings will be taken.

To load and apply power to the power supply, a combination of IBT and Furmark will be run to put as much strain on the power supply as possible. After 10 minutes the readings will be taken and to ensure maximum strain, the CPU will be overclocked to 4.8GHz. Depending on the power of the power supply, multiple graphics cards could be used in line with how comfortable I feel the power supply will cope with such load. In the case of this unit, the GTX 1060 doesn’t support SLI. We will endeavour to improve our testing methods over 2017 though!

ATX themselves specify that a fluctuation and variable of 5% is acceptable so to number crunch it means that:

3.3V = 3.135V-3.465V is acceptable
5V = 4.75V-5.25V is acceptable
12V = 11.4V – 12.6V is acceptable.

Any readings outside of these figures will be an automatic fail.

Conclusion

It’s hard to deny that the Fractal Design Edison M 750W 80PLUS Gold semi-modular power supply is a fantastic example of Fractal’s solid design team, but it doesn’t come without a couple of pitfalls, unfortunately. Yes the OEM of this unit is Seasonic and that does put the Edison M range on a very strong footing in terms of quality…and that’s exactly what’s going on here, good quality!

The overall look, feel and design is very nice indeed on the Edison M range, although given the very high cost of this particular unit (£117.99 at Ebuyer), I would have expected a space saving flat ribboned 24pin ATX cable to compliment this. At £117.99, it does beg the question ‘is the Edison M 750W worth the high price tag?’ In my honest opinion, Fractal Design could do with reconsidering the price a little bit, especially if they want to corner the market with this particular unit. Of course, the Edison M range is backed by a solid 5-year warranty and that also needs to be factored in when you consider the value.

Performance wise, there isn’t really much wrong with the Edison M 750W that we could tell from our testing; the only issue was noise. The 120mm fan does work hard when the unit is being hammered under full load and the extra un-needed noise will be off-putting to some. Other than that and potentially using a 140mm fan to ease the noise at load, there isn’t much more Seasonic and Fractal Design could do.

If you’re in the market for a very good looking and decent performing 750w power supply and have a relatively good budget, then the Edison M 750W is certainly good enough to be on the short list. The EVGA FPS OEM 750W GQ might offer better value for money, but Seasonic is one of the best OEMs on the planet and when it comes to powering expensive components, I would go with what gives me peace of mind and the 80 PLUS Gold Edison M screams reliability. This is certainly a power supply that you should highly consider for your system.

Big thanks to Fractal Design for sending the Edison M 750W power supply in for review.