A Closer Look:

Box Front

Box Back

The BFG LS-680 Power Supply is designed for fulfill the basic goal of providing strong, stable wattage without costing you a lot of money. The LS-680 is also rated to be at least 80% to 85% efficient. Now, try finding that kind of feature for under its $100 price tag currently found on Newegg. It's easy to find sub 80% PSUs for cheaper, but you can bet the power rails aren't nearly as stable, nor will you get the maximum rated wattage at the levels optimally required for the best system life. It's undervolting you want to avoid unless you like having to deal with random system hardware failure or issues.

Contents

You've no doubt noticed it's not a modular PSU and doesn't sport any lights, gimmicks, or tricks. And the housing isn't clear coat painted or fancied up either, but it is made with a very sturdy, jet black chassis. That's perfectly alright when comparing the pricing of modular versus hard wired models. You're going to end up spending more money for the body work and cables. Again, if you happen to find a modular with this amount of power, it's either a well timed clearance sell (most likely with rebates), or it'll be made with far less quality.

Top

The back of the PSU has been machined to offer as much air flow as possible. The vent hole spacing opens the mesh quite a bit. This should help keep dust down and make cleaning easier.

Large Honey-Comb Vent

This PSU isn't completely lacking in useful features either. Looking over the cable options, you'll notice that there are 2 x 6-Pin PCI Express and 2 x 8-Pin PCI Express connectors. That means you aren't limited to any particular SLI or Crossfire video cards or have to worry about picking up any cable adapters. The lower model cards tend to require a 6-Pin at the minimum, while cards like the 260 and 280 GTX require at least one 8-Pin.

6 x 4-Pin Molex	2 x 6-Pin & 8-Pin PCI Express
24-Pin & 8-Pin 12V Aux	8 x SATA

The PSU is also a little more updated with the IDE versus SATA cable count. Regular 4-Pin Molex connectors aren't so common in up to date systems since drives have migrated over to a SATA interface, so a count of six should be more than sufficient. There are 8 x SATA connectors which should be more than enough for even power users.

Flat Black Housing

The power rails are pretty much perfectly balanced as well. The 3.3V offers 24 amps and the 5V provides 30 amps. Anything more would be a waste just like lesser quality PSUs. The Quad 12V rails provide 20 amps each! That's the amount of amperage officially supported by Nvidia. This also gives you an idea of the PSU's capabilities.

Power Spec Sticker

A large 135mm fan covering the span of the PSU chassis helps keep it cool. Inside the PSU, you can see how well positioned the fan is over the three separate heat sinks cooling the switches. Given the size of the fan, it's most likely rated to roughly about 60 CFM. There's no mention of the fan noise or what to expect, but it'll most likely average about 25 dB at full speed.

135mm Brushless Fan

The sinks are pretty thick and appear to be spread out for optimum cooling. The internal circuitry and size of the chassis is overall pretty balanced makes the PSU some what lighter than some. One large capacitor can be seen that once upon a time would seem insufficient. But, given better designs and component improvements across the industry, it really comes down to whether or not the PSU can live up to its specs. Let's check that out.

Opened Chassis

Closer Look

Got News? Send 'em in!