First look at the MSI MPG A850GS PCIE5 power supply: the "gold" of modern standards

Experienced PC users know well how important a system element is a power supply. It does not indirectly affect the number of fps, video processing time, or system boot speed. However, it is precisely the reliability and capabilities of the power supply that determine the energy security and overall stability of the platform. New powerful video cards additionally require the units to comply with certain modern standards that take into account peak loads and the nuances of power distribution. Therefore, when choosing a new power supply, it is worth paying attention to models that take into account the power requirements of new graphics adapters. Today, in express mode, we will look at the operation of the MSI MPG A850GS PCIE5 - a new 850 W model with support for ATX 3.0/3.1, PCIe 5.1 standards, and 80 PLUS Gold certification.

Package contents

The power supply comes in a cardboard box with a fairly bright exterior design. On the packaging, you can easily see a photo of the device itself, as well as labels indicating the PSU's compliance with certain standards.

The unit also comes with a set of power cables. In addition to the network cable, the manufacturer also offers ATX cables (24-pin, 600 mm), two EPS12V CPU cables (750 mm); one 12V-2x6 (PCIE 5.1, 600 mm); one PCI-E (6+2 pins) + 12V-2x6 to PCI-E (6+2 pins); two SATA (2x4 connectors, 500 mm) and one 500 mm cable with four Molex connectors for peripherals. We note right away that the cables are provided with plastic braid, and the ATX has additional organizers.

Layout

MSI recently introduced an updated line of MPG series power supplies, for which support for ATX 3.1 and PCI-E 5.1 standards was a key innovation. The line includes three models with a capacity of 1250 W, 1000 W and 850 W. The younger version came to us for practical experiments.

MSI MPG A850GS PCIE5 has classic dimensions for an ATX standard PSU – 150x150x86 mm, weight – 1.63 kg. Obviously, for a power supply, the external design is of secondary importance, most of them are hidden in the depths of cases, and with a modular layout of cases, they generally remain out of the owner’s sight. However, this is not a reason to completely abandon external decor.

The side panels of the unit feature the MPG series logos with the invariable symbol of the gaming line in the form of a dragon. The walls have additional profiling embossing.

The unit has a fully modular design. The front panel provides a set of connectors with marked connector designations. Modular design has actually become a standard for this class of devices. In this case, you can use only those power cables that are really needed to connect the existing platform elements. For example, cables for powering SATA devices or Molex are rather optional.

On the back side there is a socket for the power network cable, an on/off switch and a button with the Zero Fan signature, which activates the semi-passive cooling mode technology with the fan stopping at moderate load. The key has the reverse logic of action - pressing it disables the Zero Fan mode.

Through the bottom panel grille, you can see the 135mm fan and part of the internal layout of the unit. The through-holes have a large area, facilitating the access of air from the outside, which is important, especially in passive cooling conditions.

On the top solid panel there is a large sticker with the main technical characteristics of the unit. We note the declared ability to provide almost 850 W on the +12 V line, a total of up to 120 W for +5 V and +3.3 V and 15 W for the alternating voltage (+5Vsb).

MSI MPG A850GS PCIE5 offers two standard 12V-2x6 connectors at once. The developers emphasize the possibility of using a pair of video cards in the system, for example, for training ML models or media processing. However, given the total power of the PSU, it is obvious that these may not be configurations with two top-end GeForce RTX 5090s (575+ W), but less energy-intensive models. Although the presence of such an option can be considered an asset of the unit.

According to the ATX 3.0/3.1 standard, the power supply must withstand short-term overloads that are significantly higher than its rated power. For the MSI MPG A850GS PCIE5, the ability to cope with surges of up to 1700 W (200%) with a duration of 100 μs is declared. This is an important feature, considering that modern top-end video cards can significantly increase consumption for a short time. For example, the GeForce RTX 5090, despite a constant total power consumption of 575 W, can "shoot" up to 700+ W at a time. It is during such spontaneous surges that the stability of the platform's power supply should not be disturbed.

The unit is 80 PLUS Gold certified, which means that the peak efficiency should reach 90%. Compliance with this criterion has also been confirmed by Cybenetics and PPLP.info laboratories.

MSI MPG A850GS PCIE5 supports the semi-passive cooling mode Zero Fan. Up to a certain load (the developers indicate an indicator below 60%), the fan does not turn on, due to which the unit operates silently. As soon as the actual consumption indicator exceeds the set limit, the cooling switches to active mode. If necessary, this option can be turned off, the corresponding button is located on the rear panel of the PSU.

As for the fan itself, it uses a 135mm ZIC ZFF132512H model with a hydrodynamic bearing (FDB). Typically, fans of this type are more durable than sleeve models and quieter than rolling bearings.

Low noise level during operation is also one of the options of MSI MPG A850GS PCIE5. Of course, we are talking about the conditions when the fan rotates for additional cooling of the components. According to acoustic tests, the PSU received the Cybenetics A++ certificate, which is worthy of approval. Detailed results of testing MSI MPG A850GS PCIE5 in the Cybenetics laboratory can be found on the corresponding project page. For those who are interested, the configuration of the unit's element base is also indicated here.

Returning to the equipment, we note that the complete 12V-2x6 cable is made using Dual-Color 12V-2x6 technology. The contact part of the connector has a bright yellow color. After installation in the corresponding connector, the visual absence of colored parts is an additional sign of tight contact, which is fundamentally important when it comes to a connector capable of transmitting up to 600 W of energy.

We also pay special attention to the fact that the MSI MPG A850GS PCIE5 model comes with two 12V-2x6 cables. One with a native 16-pin (12+4) "input/output", the second is actually an adapter from 12V-2x6 to two 8-pin PCI-E connectors. This adds versatility to the unit, allowing you to power both 12V-2x6 video cards and those equipped with classic PCI-E 8-pin without any hassle. Or two at the same time, if their total consumption is within the limits of the nominal power of the PSU. Taking into account the consumption of other system elements, of course.

Such a hybrid "combo", for example, may be useful for GeForce RTX 50 owners who are impatient to play 32-bit hits of yesteryear with active PhysX effects. What exactly will be needed for this - read in the MSI GeForce RTX 5070 Ti VANGUARD SOC Launch Edition review, where we separately investigated this point.

Test bench configuration

• Motherboard: MSI MAG B860 TOMAHAWK MAX WIFI
• Processor: Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (8P+12E; 3.9/5.5 GHz + 3.3/4.6 GHz)
• Cooling: MSI MAG CORELIQUID I360
• Memory: Kingston FURY Renegade DDR5-7200 2×16 GB (KF572C38RWK2-32)
• Graphics card: MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16G GAMING SLIM STALKER 2 EDITION
• Drive: Kingston KC3000 1 GB (SKC3000S/1024G)

To test the PSU capabilities in practice, we used a platform with an Intel Core Ultra 7 265K processor (8P+12E; 3.9/5.5 GHz + 3.3/4.6 GHz) and an MSI MAG B860 TOMAHAWK MAX WIFI motherboard, a detailed review of which we recently published. Although the new Core Ultra 200 chips are generally more economical than their predecessors, under maximum load the 20-core model can consume more than 200 W, especially if you first remove the power limits in the board's BIOS settings. For our experiments with the PSU, this is rather a plus.

The test bench was also equipped with the MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16G GAMING SLIM STALKER 2 EDITION graphics card. The model has a recommended frequency formula for the GPU - 2340/2610 MHz, and the power consumption level corresponds to the declared one - 285 W.

To increase the load, we additionally overclocked the GPU/memory, having previously increased the power limit of the video card to the maximum for this modification of 107%. The GPU was able to be accelerated by 230 MHz (2570/2840 MHz), and the memory worked stably at an effective 25,000 MHz, instead of the base 21,000 MHz. As a result, the video card consumed up to 304 W at peak gaming load.

Obviously, the processor and graphics card are the main energy consumers in the system, but a certain share also falls on the motherboard, storage and RAM. In addition, in our case, we use a three-fan MSI MAG CORELIQUID I360 liquid cooling system with a relatively powerful pump and additional ARGB lighting.

In operation

To test the capabilities of the power supply in express mode, we simulated several realistic system usage scenarios with different load conditions and assessed their impact on the voltage stability of key lines – 12 V, 5 V, and 3.3 V.

When the system is off, the wattmeter registers consumption at 0.1–0.5 W. In this case, the motherboard is supplied with standby power, so it is obvious that consumption is different from zero, although close to it.

After turning on the system, the platform consumed an average of 73 watts in total at rest.

To really stress the Core Ultra 7 265K, we used the Cinebench R23 multi-threaded scene rendering test. Under these conditions, the chip required 190-200 watts (211 watts max), while the overall PC power consumption averaged 286 watts.

In the game Cyberpunk 2077 (1440p mode), the platform consumed a total of 460 W of energy. Of course, the main consumer here was the graphics card, while the CPU during battles required only 90–100 W. Even such a "heavyweight" project cannot load a 20-core processor at 100%. And that's a good thing.

We also tested the mode with the specified graphics card overclock and its Power Limit increased to 107%. In this case, the total power consumption increased by 20 W to 480 W.

We try to load the power supply even more significantly. We simultaneously run the Cinebench R23 rendering test and Cyberpunk 2077 with an overclocked graphics card. The first one "burns out" the CPU, while the adventures in Night City will exhaust all the resources of the graphics adapter. In this case, of course, we were not interested in the performance results in the specified applications, the goal is maximum power consumption. The combined load managed to get 565 W.

We record the modes and in each case evaluate the deviations on the 12 V, 5 V and 3.3 V lines. We focus on the motherboard monitoring indicators obtained from HWinfo64.

At a load of up to 67% (565 W) of the nominal power of 850 W, the unit does an excellent job of stabilizing the voltage of the main power lines. The decrease in the base voltage for +12 V is recorded within 0.6%.

It was experimentally determined that with the Zero Fan function activated, the fan starts to rotate when the load on the PSU exceeds 390 W. Even after reaching the maximum for our conditions of 565 W, the noise level remains low. The PSU worked quieter than the liquid cooling system and the graphics card cooler, so in such conditions it is difficult to assess the contribution of the power supply itself.

If we rely on the results obtained during the MSI MPG A850GS PCIE5 test in the Cybenetics laboratory, at the level of 620–630 W, the fan speed increases slightly, and is adjusted again after ~710 W. But even in this case, the PSU operates very quietly (20–25 dBA), which is why the MSI MPG A850GS PCIE5 received the Cybenetics A++ acoustic certification.

As for the efficiency, in a certain range this figure exceeds 90%, which corresponds to the Gold standard. The maximum efficiency of the units is usually demonstrated at 50% of the nominal power. If we are talking about an 850 W PSU, then the most efficient unit will be at a workload of ~425 W. In our case, in the game Cyberpunk 2077, the platform required ~460 W, which is a close figure, so in such a configuration during gaming sessions the PSU will provide maximum efficiency.

In general, 850W units are the optimal choice for progressive gaming configurations, and these are the models we recommend for the corresponding systems in the traditional PC of the Month. The exception here is the case with the GeForce RTX 5090, which has a Total Board Power (TBP) of 575W. If the PC is equipped with such a video card, the developers recommend a 1000+W power supply.

Price and warranty period

Power supplies of the updated line from MSI are already available in Ukraine. The MSI MPG A850GS PCIE5 model received a recommended price tag of 7400 UAH. Obviously, the PSU is not cheap and has considerable competition in this segment. Although 850 W devices with an efficiency certificate of 80 Plus Gold, support for ATX 3.1 and PCIE 5.1, a pair of native 12V-2x6 connectors and a quiet fan with a semi-passive mode, by default do not fall into the budget category.

The block is more expensive than we would like, but if you take into account the equipment, alternatives will be in the same price category. For MSI MPG A850GS PCIE5, the manufacturer offers a 10-year warranty. With a successful choice, the blocks usually remain in the system for at least the entire warranty period.