Closer Look and Performance
After opening the Dagger Pro PSU, we can see how tight everything is installed. It may cause higher temperatures than expected, but high-quality components usually run at lower temperatures with higher efficiency.
All the visible capacitors are rated at 105°C or more. As we can see from the main features, all the capacitors are Japanese, which matches what we can see under the hood. Most of them are Nippon Chemi-Con, but we can also find Rubycon. We can read values from one of the main capacitors, but the design seems similar to the previous Dagger Pro PSU, where the main capacitors were rated at 420V, 120/150uF, and 105°C.
The soldering and overall build quality looks exceptional. It’s hard to see the soldering in the photos of the center, and installed daughter PCB boards with DC to DC converters are also covering a lot. It’s better visible on the back of the board with modular cable connectors.
The Dagger Pro 850W uses a double-ball-bearing, DC brushless fan. It’s made by Power Logic and has 92mm. At a lower speed, it’s quiet, but the high PSU load makes it run at high RPM. The specifications suggest up to 2700RPM or higher under full load. The fan wasn’t loud in our tests, and we could hear it only in full-load tests. On a typical gaming PC, we would hear everything else more than the PSU. As I mentioned earlier, FSP improved the fan curve of the new Dagger Pro PSU, and it makes less noise under high load.
The PSU makes less noise overall than many other popular SFX models like Lian-Li SP750/850.
Performance
Tests were performed on the Intel platform containing the overclocked i9 14900K CPU, ASUS Z790 APEX motherboard, and overclocked Colorful RTX4080 Advanced OC graphics card. The peak wattage is around 750W.
All results were performed on a PC with an open case and idle temperature of around 24-25°C.
All results were performed on the open space rig.
There were no stability issues during all tests. The Dagger Pro 850W’s efficiency is excellent and easily meets 80 PLUS Gold certification. The PSU could handle our test rig without issues. The highest value at +12V is also pretty respectable, as most new PSUs in the max load test go below 11.9V. We can’t compare it to the top 80+ Platinum or Titanium, but it’s still excellent.
In idle and during the mixed load tests, the PSU was quiet and not significantly audible, or it was hard to separate its noise from the test rig. We could clearly hear it during the highest load tests, but a typical gaming PC, even high-end, shouldn’t run at more than 400-500W for most of the time.
In the mixed load tests, which are close to regular gaming, the PSU acted almost as if it were idle. It was quiet, and the voltages were stable. I’m sure anyone who wants a small PSU with headroom of power in case of unexpected tasks will be satisfied.
