BFG 800W Power Supply Review

Interior Impressions


Cracking open the BFG 800W shows us some typical Topower internals and heatsinks which are well set up for a dual 80mm fan layout. Both the primary and secondary look well appointed even though this looks very much like it is a group-regulated unit.


Both the primary and secondary sides are populated by Jenpo caps. I have never seen a great amount of complaints about this particular brand but I have not seen them outside of Topower-built power supplies. The cap on the primary is rated at 85*C which is perfectly all right considering it is lodged right up against the exhaust fan. The caps and other components on the secondary are similarly well ventilated due to the cross-flow provided by the intake fan. But wait…we are not yet done with our walkabout inside of the BFG 800W power supply!!


Really delving deep

Right about here this review will take a bit of a different turn with a new section. A second BFG 800W power supply was sent to a power supply fanatic better known as Oklahoma Wolf from both Jonnyguru.com and Badcaps.net. He was more than willing to give his power supply a frontal lobotomy and send us the lowdown about what he found. So, without further delay, here is what he found.


Here we are looking at the transient filter on the input side. This is where some power supplies take a turn for the worse but it looks like the Topower-built BFG 800W is well-appointed here.

The next picture shows the underside of the main PCB. All of the traces are cleanly soldered without any excess but if you look closer there is no Loc-Tite or solder on the screws which hold the heatsinks in place. While it is highly unlikely, this may cause the screws to vibrate loose over time.


Interestingly, one of the transformers on was not seated properly on the PCB before it was soldered in place. I thought this might be an isolated case with Okla’s unit but upon closer inspection, my unit had the same issue. While this should not affect performance in any way, it does go to show that there may be some lapses of Topower’s quality control.

The main protection chip carries the number PS232S. Unfortunately, we could not find any information about this chip…but the search continues!!


On one side of the primary heatsink there lies a PFC diode on the extreme left of the heatsink while the two primary switchers are 20N60 units set up in a double forward converter arrangement. Interestingly, for some reason the center leg of the PFC diode has been cut off.

On the other side of the primary heatsink there are two GBU606 bridge rectifiers running in parallel which add up to 12A of capacity. Meanwhile, on the right there are 20N60C3 parts used for the PCF controller.



In the next picture we see the PWM/PCF controller. This is a commonly-used Champion CM6800G controller which is used in quite a few power supply designs.