ACCORD ACC-1000W-80G power supply

A review of a computer power supply rated at 1000 W.
Happy New Year, everyone!
The link in the table of contents currently points to a large national retailer. My STORE is closed until January 4.
I wrote a very amateur review of a computer power supply. There are no tests or measurements in this review. I simply opened the PSU and took a look at the circuit board and its components. Just before New Year, I decided to get a spare PSU for my computer (I have two computers at home). A long time ago, I used to mess around with overclocking and always bought 750 W power supplies. I had a spare PSU at home, but gave it to some friends to replace the one that had burned out. That PSU had worked for me for a while, and I replaced every single electrolytic capacitor with a name-brand one. I also soldered in SMD ceramic capacitors alongside the smaller power-supply capacitors. I often soldered scraps of copper wire onto the board's power pads to reinforce them. In other words, the spare PSU just sat there, waiting for its moment.
I checked the local DNS/Technopoint store. The picture was pretty bleak. They only had junk at affordable prices; decent options were expensive. Really expensive, in-store. So I switched to the big online retailers. I didn't want to deal with them because of the warranty, but what can you do? Prices were high there too, but almost acceptable.
I narrowed the list down to two options. The prices worked for me. These were somewhat problematic PSUs: 1) 750 W Aerocool (750FP7) — Platinum. 2) ZALMAN ZM750-ARX — Platinum. They can have problems right out of the box, which is why they come with big discounts. You can buy one for under 7000 RUB with delivery, starting at 6400 RUB (under $98).
I finally settled on the AeroCool P7 Platinum 750W. I liked that there are no wires inside this PSU—I appreciated that. Possible issues: the PSU shuts down because of its (incorrectly set) overload protection at around 450 W. Sometimes the fan doesn't start, the components begin to overheat, the thermal protection trips, and the PSU shuts down.
I was about to order the AeroCool P7, but decided to check one more local store, just to be sure. It's E2E4, a company with a physical store in town and a strong presence across Western Siberia.
There I spotted the ACCORD ACC-1000W-80G PSU. Supposedly rated at 1000 W. They claim it has a Gold certification. And best of all, it costs just 5500 RUB. At the AliExpress exchange rate ($1 = 65 RUB), that's $85.
I got interested and started looking into this PSU. There is absolutely no information about it. There are a few indirect clues that tell us a little about it. These are reviews on Citilink.
Since there was no information about this PSU (no videos or photos of the inside), I decided to write a review.
What can we use from these reviews?
1) According to one review, this PSU cost around 10,000 RUB in spring 2018 (almost twice as much, and that seems to be the Moscow price).
2) The warranty is short; I knew that even without the reviews. One year (in my case).
3) The included cables are short. I have a regular case, not a Full Tower. If they're not long enough to hide the cables, they should definitely be long enough for a direct connection. So I can overlook that.
4) It comes with four 6+2 cables. More than enough for me; I'm not a miner.
5) They claim it has seven SATA connectors—that's enough for me, with room to spare.
7) This PSU is used for mining and seems to work fine, so it should be more than enough for me. Even 750 W would be plenty.
8) They claim 996 W on the main 12 V rail. The ratio is almost 1:1—an excellent figure.
Bottom line: the price is great, it supposedly has a Gold certification, and it should provide more than enough power. It should also be quiet because it has plenty of thermal headroom. This PSU is available locally, so I can return it or make a warranty claim.
The downsides: a one-year warranty. It's unclear who actually made the PSU or whose platform it uses. The inside is a lottery. But I have spare capacitors at home in case it's an obvious fake.
I flipped a coin—it seemed to come up in its favor, so I ordered the ACCORD ACC-1000W-80G for 5500 RUB ($85 total). I ordered it late on Friday the 27th. It arrived at the store on Sunday. I picked it up on Monday.
The box is standard, and the weight seems about right. PSU dimensions: 150 mm wide, 160 mm long, 85 mm high. I can't get an exact weight because of the cables, but it's about 1650 g. The PSU label has a typo in the mains frequency specification: AC 115V-230V/ 60HZ-60HZ.
The box lists it correctly as 60Hz/50Hz.


The listed protections are: 1) OVP—overvoltage protection. 2) UVP—undervoltage protection. 3) OCP—overcurrent protection. 4) OPP—overload protection. 5) SCP—short-circuit protection. 6) OTP—overtemperature protection.


The PSU has semi-modular cabling. Three cables are permanently attached: the main 24-pin cable (split into two sections, about 520 mm) and two 8-pin cables (split into two sections, about 660 mm). The other cables are detachable.
There are four graphics card cables (8-pin, split into two sections), 535 mm long including the connectors. There are four peripheral cables, about 800 mm long including the connectors, with seven SATA connectors (straight, not angled), four PATA connectors, and one FDD connector. The PSU has six sockets for peripheral cables
on its modular panel. The box also contains a bag of screws and cable ties (for some reason, it had been opened).


A mains cable is included, with caps over the plug pins. This one has a hefty 3 × 1.5 mm² cross-section and is 1.5 m long (excellent).


Time to check the PSU. Get out the multimeter, set it to continuity mode, and check the PSU input and output for short circuits. Check the cable for breaks at the same time. If everything looks good, you can connect the PSU to the mains.
If you bought the power supply from a regular local store, you can switch it on for the first time without a 220 V safety lamp (you need an incandescent bulb, NOT an energy-saving one). If the power supply blows up, we can just take it back under warranty.
Get a paper clip and short the green and black contacts on the main cable (the 24-pin one). The contacts are next to each other in the same row. Switch on the power supply. Mine started up normally; I clearly heard a relay click when I switched it on. The fan started spinning right away. Check the output voltages immediately. So far, so good.
Since everything seems fine so far, it's time to break the seal on the screw and remove the cover. Let's see what's inside this Chinese-made unit. And this is where I got a big surprise. I'd never run into this before. I could remove only three of the eight screws on the cover. I had to drill out the rest. I covered the fan grille with a plastic bag and taped over the connectors to keep metal shavings out. Then I drilled out the screws. Using long-nose pliers, I unscrewed the remaining bits of the screws from the power supply chassis.
At last, after all that, I got to see the inside of the power supply. What did I expect to find?
I expected a decent filter, a Chinese 470–560 µF (400–450 V) input electrolytic capacitor, a pair of DC-DC boards (for the low-voltage rails), a large output inductor, and a bunch of 16 V/10 V electrolytic capacitors. Maybe even synchronous rectification. And the rest in a standard configuration.
Let's take an initial look.
At first glance, I thought they'd specifically ordered a green circuit board. Even the output electrolytic capacitors, the DC-DC board, and the transformer insulation are green. What caught my eye was the large number of inductors/transformers. There are six of them, including the APFC inductor.



Well, it all looks pretty good. There's a 5×20 mm fuse (covered with heat-shrink tubing). There's a relay (10 A–250 VAC/10 A–30 VDC).


Behind it is a thermistor (a branded one, in green). Two common-mode chokes (also covered with heat-shrink tubing). There's a large X capacitor (yellow).


Two bridge rectifiers (in parallel). At first I saw the marking and thought it was way too low-rated—GBU508. Then I looked closer and saw it says GBU1 508 (that's more like it). There's a pair of Y capacitors (Y2).


They've also soldered X and Y capacitors directly onto the connector. There's a ferrite ring on the input wires. Well-known brands do exactly the same thing, except they usually cover the ferrite ring with heat-shrink tubing.
Now let's take a closer look at these components.
1) A big hello to the assembler—what on earth made you NOT bolt the bridge rectifiers to the heatsink? There's a threaded hole right there for them.


2) The switch breaks only one wire (the live). The design allows it to break both wires, though. Fine, let it break only the live. But why did you, the assembler, correctly solder the live and neutral wires to the 230 V input connector, wrap them around the ring (to suppress common-mode noise), and then suddenly solder the live wire into the hole marked (N)?
And, accordingly, solder the neutral wire into the hole marked (L). Why? That means the fuse is now on the neutral line.


3) A minor nitpick: there's no varistor, and none was planned. This doesn't matter to me at all. My power supplies at home are connected through power strips with surge protection. They have several huge varistors inside. I've opened them up for maintenance and repairs.

As for the bridge rectifiers, I think they absolutely need to be installed properly. They're soldered in slightly crooked and, it seems, a little below the holes. It may turn out that the old bridge rectifiers can't be reused. Then we'll have to order these bridge rectifiers from AliExpress (they're not available here), or get GBU1510, and install them properly. Temporarily remove the neighboring component (the little black square), since it'll get in the way. It's a CBB21,105J/450V (1 µF) capacitor. Remove the old bridge rectifiers, clean out the holes, and install the new ones. First bolt them to the heatsink with thermal paste, then solder them in straight. But here's what's interesting: if you zoom in on the seller's photo, the bridge rectifiers are installed exactly the same way. So apparently the factory doesn't even require them to be bolted to the heatsink. The engineer provided a way to mount them to the heatsink, but the guys on the assembly line decided it was an unnecessary hassle.
Moving on. We see a fairly large inductor (it looks like a transformer). This is the APFC—the active power factor correction circuit. A CM03AX chip is soldered next to it.


After it, there's a large 680 µF/400 V capacitor (30/50 mm). It's a SAMXON (LP), rated for 85 degrees. The capacitance is pretty good, considering the APFC, the brand, and the power supply's price. I thought it would be smaller. A branded 105°C capacitor of this size would be around 560 µF (400/420 V).


A quick note about these high-voltage capacitors. In the past, because of APFC, almost all manufacturers routinely used 420–450 V capacitors here. Chieftec power supplies were a rare exception. They were mostly rated at 400 V.
But now, on expensive Gold-series power supplies and above, the pendulum has swung the other way. 400 V capacitors are back, for one reason: higher capacitance is needed. Competition is fierce, and expensive power supplies come with longer warranties.
These days, expensive power supplies focus mainly on high capacitance and reducing ripple. On the input side, even well-known brands take a rather makeshift approach, attaching X and Y capacitors to the connectors. They squeeze ferrite rings onto the input wires any way they can.
Manufacturers are constrained by the standard and by the available space on the board and in the power supply. So if you see a lot of makeshift-looking work on the input side, that's now perfectly normal—and even a sign of a brand-name product.
The inverter power transistors, APFC transistors, and APFC diode are mounted on one long heatsink, on the same side. They are installed with insulating pads. All the transistors have large TO-247 packages; the diode is in a TO-220 package.
To check the markings on these components or replace them, you'll need to remove the heatsink with all its components, or desolder the high-voltage capacitor, APFC inductor, and another transformer.

Now let's move straight on to the low-voltage output section of the power supply. We'll take a look at the ICs on the board a little later.
Three TO-220 components are mounted on each side of the heatsink, with insulating pads. The markings are visible on only one side of the heatsink. Polymer capacitors for the 12 V rail are mounted right up against the other side.
Let's check the markings: PTP03N04N (N-channel MOSFET). Rated at 40 V, 240 A, with an RDS of 2.1 mΩ. There are six of them installed (the markings are visible on three). So this power supply uses a synchronous rectifier rather than Schottky diodes.


Now let's look at the auxiliary voltages (5 V and 3.3 V). Usually, these are handled by two DC-DC boards.
This power supply has just one DC-DC board. One thing is unclear: let's check the marking on the IC on this board. It's an APW7159. So we have a dual-channel synchronous step-down PWM controller. The board itself has only the controller, a handful of SMD components, transistors, and a pair of 470 µF/16 V polymer capacitors. The capacitors were soldered on by hand, and the flux wasn't cleaned off. The inductors are mounted separately on the main power supply board.


The auxiliary supply has four 2200 µF/10 V electrolytic capacitors (10 mm) and small filter inductors. A separate 1000 µF/16 V capacitor (8 mm) is installed on the +5 VSB rail. All the electrolytic capacitors are SAMXON (105°C). The main 12 V rail has five 820 µF/16 V polymer capacitors and one 680 µF/16 V capacitor.


Now for the ICs and other components on the board.
Judging by the number of ICs and the large number of SMD components on the front, we can assume the board has components mounted on one side only.
The standby transformer and the 8564A IC for the standby supply.


Nearby, we can see three optocouplers (817) and a CM6502UHHX IC. I assume it's related to the APFC.


Not far away is a PS20U45CT diode assembly in a TO-220 package, without a heatsink.


The fan connector is here, and nearby is an ST95313 IC—the protection IC responsible for the power supply's stated protection features.


Behind the synchronous rectifier heatsink, near the corner of the board, is a CM6901X IC with its surrounding components—presumably for monitoring and controlling the converter. Nearby is an L7912CV voltage regulator (TO-220, no heatsink).


The main power transformer, with two more small transformers next to it. The small transformers are camouflaged in green and aren't immediately noticeable.


Now for the more speculative part.
I'll try to answer some of the questions I had before buying this power supply.
1) Does the power supply meet the 80 PLUS Gold standard?
I think it does. It has all the components you'd expect in a Gold-rated unit: a DC-DC board and a synchronous rectifier. We can even ignore the APFC, since it's installed in almost every power supply. They even fitted a relay. My guess is that they added it to squeeze out even a tiny improvement in efficiency. As I see it, once the power supply starts up, the relay simply bypasses the thermistor.
2) Who actually makes this power supply? Whose platform is it based on?
After inspecting the board, identifying the component markings, and seeing the design style, it was easy to identify the actual OEM. It's a CWT platform. These exact ICs and components, along with the same design style and so on, can be found
in some power supplies sold under different brand names, but manufactured to order by CWT. And with a Gold certification, too. For example, the Thermaltake Smart DPS G series.
3) Does this power supply really match the 1000 W rating on the label?
That's an interesting question, of course. Let's assume the bridge rectifiers in this power supply are bolted to the heatsink. We'll start with a few indirect indicators. For example, the small transformer is marked as a version from the 850G. But it doesn't play a major role, so we can leave it out of the calculation. Let's take a look at the input capacitor, bridge rectifiers, and transistors.
CWT has always been a little stingy with this capacitor, since the power supplies were meant to be affordable. But CWT isn't some back-alley outfit, and the specs were more or less honest. They made a lot of models for Chieftec. These power supplies worked reliably in huge numbers.
For example, in their 750 W Gold-series power supply, they often used a 470 µF/400 V capacitor. The output stage was also much weaker there (it used synchronous rectification). The 750 W version had a single 15 A bridge rectifier (at least it was bolted to a heatsink). The transistors were in TO220 packages.
Ours has a capacitor two steps up in capacitance, and two GBU1508 bridge rectifiers. The transistors are in large TO247 packages. Looking at these components alone, the power supply really does seem close to 1000 W.
But there's one final detail that keeps me from saying that this particular power supply (the one I have) is rated for 1000 W.
After inspecting the power supply's circuit board, and knowing that the person assembling it might be in a bad mood and that there may be no oversight of the assembly process: if the assembler was a woman, my apologies, but you still get a hello and a formal acknowledgment of receipt.
Wiring mistakes are forgivable; they don't matter. But the bridge rectifiers are harder to forgive, given the claimed power rating. And here's one more fly in the ointment. The power cables for the graphics card and other peripherals connect to sockets on the power supply. These sockets are mounted on a separate board, which is attached to the power supply's wall with brass standoffs.
Remember the current involved at close to 1000 W. Thick power wires (12 AWG, 105°C) run to this board: two +12 V wires, two ground wires (GND), and one +5 V wire.
One of the 12 V wires is just tacked in place, not properly soldered. And damn it, it's on the underside of the board, where it's awkward to reach with a soldering iron to fix it. The extra board has to be unscrewed.
Next: fine, there's no room for another hole on the main board along the GND line. But why wasn't another wire soldered to the +12 V line? There's a spare hole on both the main board and the extra board.
The traces are deliberately made wide. The assembler even tried to tin them with solder, but it looks like the train (the production line) was already leaving. They ran out of time. It looks like they tried to tin these traces, but only dropped a blob of solder onto the board,
checked that the blob wasn't shorting anything, and gave up. They didn't clean up the solder left on the board, and the drop stuck to it.




If you're going to use this power supply at high power, be sure to unscrew this board. Get a decent stranded copper wire with a cross-section greater than 2.5 mm². Solder it to the +12 V connection on the main board and to the +12 V connection on this extra board.
Then take pieces of solid wire thicker than 1 mm. You can use winding wire such as PETV or PETV-2; strip off the varnish/enamel and use it to thoroughly tin the power traces on the extra board, especially the narrow sections. Since the soldering iron is already out, you can also run a thick +5 V wire from the main board to this extra board. There are spare holes.
Time to draw some kind of conclusion.
So what's the point of this review? If you live in a big city with plenty of power supplies to choose from and reasonable prices, don't even give it a second thought. Get a power supply with the wattage you need and a long warranty.
If you live in a small town with few brick-and-mortar stores, high prices, and want to save money, then options like these are worth considering.
Online stores are a problem if you need to make a warranty claim. Sometimes you'll have to jump through a lot of extra hoops. With a regular store, you can just take it back, and there usually aren't any problems.
In this review, I suggested two ways to save money.
1) Look at top-tier power supplies from established brands (Gold and above), but focus on models with known issues. Some stores offer huge discounts on them.
Check your horoscope; if it looks good, buy one ))). Problem power supplies usually come from a single batch, while other batches are often fine. But there's no guarantee.
2) Look at power supplies like the one in this review.
As for the power supply itself, my only real complaint is that the bridge rectifiers aren't bolted down. The board is absolutely clean. The soldering is good. There's flux only on the extra board for the connectors, where the thick wires were soldered by hand. There's also a little flux on the DC-DC board, where two capacitors were added by hand. If the power supply works right away and has no manufacturing defects, it'll keep working. Install it in a case, put it under a good load (with a stress test), and see how it goes. Manufacturing defects usually show up right away.
This power supply will be more than enough for a typical system (so it should be quiet).
I think that's everything. Once again, Happy New Year to everyone! Wishing you health and good luck in the New Year!