MSI MPG A1000G PCIe 5.0 1000-watt 80 PLUS Gold Gamers PSU Review

TweakTown's Rating: 91%

The Bottom Line

For being new in the PSU game, MSI really has a quality unit with the A1000G PCIE5 power supply, which includes a +12VHPWR 600w cable for newer GPUs.

Pros

• + ATX 3.0 compatible out of the box
• + Single railed design
• + 100% Japanese capacitors and 135mm Fluid Dynamic Bearing fan
• + 80 Plus Gold Certified
• + Compact form factor and fully modular

Cons

• - Only the 12-pin PCIe 5.0 cables were sleeved

Should you buy it?

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Buy at Amazon

Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

In the coming months, especially now that NVIDIA has announced the new GeForce RTX 4000 series of GPUs, specifically the RTX 4090 and the two variants of the RTX 4080, you will start to see new ATX 3.0 spec'd out power supplies to accommodate these new power hungry GPUs, which can gobble up as much as 600 watts per this new ATX 3.0 PCIe spec.

MSI, as a company, has been around for a long time, but making PSUs, not so much. MSI launched its first PSU late in 2020. MSI is more known for its motherboards, Intel and AMD alike, and GPUs from both NVIDIA and AMD. MSI also makes many laptops, desktops, monitors, and other system components.

MSI has sent over its MPG A1000G PCIe 5 power supply, which includes two +12VHPWR cables to plug directly into the new connector on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4000 GPUs, which I am sure AMD will follow suit with their future GPUs.

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The MPG A1000G PCIE5 also has two other siblings, the MPG A750G PCIE5 and the MPG 850G PCIE5. Pricing for the model we have for review today, the MPG A1000G PCIE5, is set at $199.99 (at the time of this review).

MSI MPG A1000G Gaming Power Supply

	Today	Yesterday	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$299.40	$299.40	$298.90	$179.99	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 4/15/2024 at 5:25 am CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Packaging

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The MPG A1000G PCIE5 arrived in the standard cardboard box with an 80 Plus Gold certification, ATX 3.0 compatible, and PCIe 5.0 ready badging.

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This backside of the box shows some of the features and the included connectors, plus the two 12-Pin PCIe 5.0 cables.

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The cables are neatly packed in this MSI Dragon branding pouch, which makes for a tidy presentation.

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With the cables all pulled out, sans the +12VHPWR cables, which are nicely blacked out with a flat appearance, other than the 24 pin.

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The coveted +12VHPWR cable can provide up to 600 watts of power to any GPU that will take it. Note, this is a 12-pin cable with the four sensing wires, and this cable is also fully sleeved.

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Another sleeved +12VHPWR 600-watt cable is included that terminates to two PCIe 6+2 pin connections for older GPUs that do not utilize the newer ATX 3.0 standard.

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The A1000G itself was packaged in a plastic bag and protected with high-density foam.

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MSI wants you to know there is a Zero Fan Mode with this sticker on the backside of the A1000G.

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The PSU

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The physical dimensions of the MPG A1000G PCIE5 are 150mm wide by 150mm long by 86mm tall. Overall a very compact little unit.

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The rear shows a lot of ventilation, a Zero Fan speed button which allows the fan to operate at 0 RPM up to 40% capacity, and finally, the standard ATX style plug.

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The power input section is well put together, with plenty of connections for high-end systems being fully modular.

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The 135mm fan that MSI chose to use here is the ONG HUA HA13525H12SF-Z which has a fluid dynamic bearing and can run up to 2300 RPM with .50A.

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Here is a top-down shot of the motherboard with its five daughterboards. Also visible is the one large Nichicon capacitor and the 12V VRM heat sinks.

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The Japanese Nichicon LGL2G821MELC40 capacitor in better view. The 820uF capacitor is rated to handle 400 volts in DC power.

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Another view of the Japanese Nichicon capacitor.

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Rated at 1000 watts on the 12V rail with 83.5 amps.

Test System

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• Motherboard: MSI TRX40 Pro Wi-Fi (AMD TRX40) - Buy from Amazon
• CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X - Buy from Amazon
• Cooler: Custom Watercooling
• Memory: Crucial Ballistix 3200MHz DDR4 8x8GB - Buy from Amazon
• Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition - Buy from Amazon
• Storage: Kingston Fury Renegade 1TB NVME PCIE 4.0 M.2 SSD - Buy from Amazon
• Case: Lian Li Lancool III - Buy from Amazon
• Power Supply: MSI MPG A1000G PCIE5 - Buy from Amazon
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 64-bit - Buy from Amazon
• Software: AIDA64 Engineer 6.32.5600, and CPU-z 1.94.0 x64

Testing and Final Thoughts

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We tested the MSI MPG A1000G PCIE5 PSU in the test system above, which has an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X with Precision Boost Overdrive enabled and an NVIDIA RTX 3090 Founders Edition. The 3970X has 32 cores with 64 threads, with a total TDP of 280 watts at stock frequencies. However, when PBO is enabled, the 3970X can draw almost 400 watts! To tame the heat that this Threadripper beast is putting out, only a custom water cooling loop will do.

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With the recent news of NVIDIA's RTX 4090 being able to draw 450 of the 600 watts from the 16-pin 12VHPWR cable and add the additional 14% NVIDIA allows on top of the power limit, the total wattage is pushed over 500 watts! Now the GPU today, the NVIDIA RTX 3090 Founders Edition, still pulls around 350 watts at the stock power limit, and when pushed to 114%, the RTX 3090 can chug the juice to the tune of over 400 watts. The results here have the ThreadRipper 3970X and RTX 3090, both at 100% load, consuming almost 800 watts between the two components.

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While NVIDIA recommends using a minimum of 850-watt PSU, I suggest using a quality 1000-watt power supply to give you some headroom. Reports of AMD's newest CPUs, the 7000 series, specifically the Ryzen 9 7950X, consumes more power than ever - check out Tyler's Ryzen 9 7950X review here. In his review, Tyler found that the 16-core / 32-threaded CPU consumed about 260 watts at load with a 24-watt idle. This is coming from a TDP of 170 watts, according to AMD.

So it's safe to say unless you are running a workstation CPU, like the Threadripper 3970X in our test system, and a high-wattage GPU, like an RTX 4090, a 1,000-watt power supply is going to be enough power for the normal enthusiast gamer. NVIDIA has also killed off any SLI support for the RTX 4000 series, so needing anything higher than 1000 watts in a power supply might only apply for those multi-GPU workstations from here on out.

The best case use for the MSI A1000G PCIE5 would be in a smaller mATX case, mainly since the A1000G is only 150mm long, making the ability to have a higher wattage PSU in a cramped build. If one were to point out any improvements, it would be for individually sleeved cables, but as I said in the FSP Hydro PTM Pro 1200W review, I am nitpicking, as custom cable extensions can get that job done.

In closing, the MSI A1000G PCIE5 power supply is a great little unit that handled our test system just fine, making it easy to recommend to those looking for a compact 1,000-watt ATX 3.0 power supply with the new 12-pin +12VHPWR cables included.