Page 1:
BFG is a privately held US based company best known for their NVIDIA graphics cards, but has added high quality power supplies to its product lineup (among other things). All BFG products are backed by a lifetime warranty and the company is one of the few that boasts 24/7 customer service. So in other words, BFG has set the bar high with its reputation and product line, causing us to expect nothing less than best-in-class among its products, includng the 680W LS seriews power supply we're reviewing today. Has BFG grown content with its prior successes (the BFG ES-800 scored higher than any other PSU we've ever tested) and now fallen asleep behind the wheel, or is the company still on the ball? We intend to find out.
To be fair, the LS series power supplies from BFG are middle of the road units. They have all fixed cable units (as opposed to modular cable units on the MX series) and feature four 12V rails cooled with a single 135mm fan. The GS series are positioned to be lower wattage and lower budget units with a 120mm fan, while the ES line features a 135mm fan and leads the pack in wattage and efficiency due to its Frequency Conversion technology. But we're not here to explore everything about BFG, so let's focus on the task at hand - the LS-680W power supply.
Contents and Features
Power supplies aren't known for their included bundle of extras, but BFG has upped the ante and not only included the basics like screws, power cable, and user manual, but they also had the foresight to include four zip ties and four reusable velcro cable wraps. This is definitely one of the best accessory packages you will find with any power supply, so BFG gets kudos here.
As mentioned before, the LS series power supplies from BFG all sport four 12V rails; the 680W version happens to rate each one at 20A and has a combined wattage of 620W. A 5V rail at 30A and a 3.3V rail at 24A round out the positive voltages and there is definitely nothing lacking here.
Having a combined total 12V wattage of 620W should power even the most demanding SLI or CrossFire setups. And with another 170W available on the 5V and 3.3V rails, there should be plenty of power to go around for all your drives and peripherals too. Just to put things in perspective, a typical high-end single video card system designed for gaming can eat up 250 - 350 total watts under load. Add another high-end video card in there and you're looking at 400 - 500 watts total power consumption from the computer. That said, a 680W power supply like this one is very capable of powering most all of the gaming computers currently out there. Let's move on to the specifics of this power supply and you'll see why.
Cables, Connections, Dimensions
| Harness | Connectors and Lengths |
| 1 | ATX 20+4 Pin mainboard connector at 22.5" long. |
| 2 | SATA power cable with four connectors at 19", 25", 31" and 37". |
| 3 | SATA power cable with four connectors at 19", 25", 31" and 37". |
| 4 | Peripheral power cable with 4 pin molex connector at 21", 27", 33" and floppy power at 39". |
| 5 | Peripheral power cable with 4 pin molex connector at 21", 27", 33" and floppy power at 39". |
| 6 | EPS/12V 8 pin (4+4) CPU power cable. 23.5” long. |
| 7 | PCI-E 6 pin connector. 21" long |
| 8 | PCI-E 6 pin connector. 21" long |
| 9 | PCI-E 8 pin (6+2) connector. 17.5" long |
| 10 | PCI-E 8 pin (6+2) connector. 17.5" long |
Cable lengths are generally long and every connector required for the typical desktop computer is present. A particularly noteworthy feature here are the four PCI-Express power connections each being on its own cable lead. Two are 8-pin and two are 6-pin so you power two of the latest and greatest power hungry video cards with 8-pin and 6-pin power connectors. There is also no shortage of SATA power connections. With SATA becoming the standard not only for hard drives but for optical drives as well, these power connections can get used up surprisingly fast. If your motherboard has six SATA ports, it's nice to know you actually have the infrastructure available to power everything should you decide to run a couple of RAID arrays and have a pair of optical drives (and still have two connectors on the power supply available for future expansion).