Open Benchtable/Elmor Labs BENCHLAB Review

TweakTown's Rating: 96%

The Bottom Line

What ElmorLabs and OBT has done for the enthusiast community with the BenchLab is really remarkable. Well done!

Pros

• Wealth of information
• Intuitive software
• Priced well
• Includes tons of cables/probes

Cons

• Not for beginners

Should you buy it?

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Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

In our quest for better PSU testing, I started roaming the internet for solutions. In my travels, I remembered the tech enthusiast site ElmorLabs. Scouring over the ElmorLabs website, I originally found the PMD and PMD2, which I could also look at. I reached out to Jon over at ElmorLabs, who quickly figured out that a BenchLab would work best for the TweakTown PSU test system. Jon then helped me contact Pieter over at Open Bench Table to acquire a BenchLab for testing and future testing use.

ElmorLabs and Open Bench Table are in Taipei, Taiwan, so they have an excellent working relationship. The BenchLab is a piece of hardware that allows for better monitoring of hardware voltages, wattage, ambient temperature, fan control, and other technical aspects. The BenchLab can be purchased either from ElmorLabs or BenchLab themselves for $199.

A quick look at the OpenBenchTable/Elmor Labs Benchlab

Why don't we open the packaging and see what the BenchLab includes and how it changes things for future PSU testing here at TweakTown?

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Packaging

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The Benchlab comes in a plain cardboard box, but we don't care about that; what's inside matters.

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Opening the brown cardboard box, the Benchlab is in an antistatic bag, and two red pieces of open-cell foam are visible, which is very nice.

Product

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There are many cables included under the BenchLab. I can tell you that these cables are of very high quality, each individually sleeved and with a thicker sleeve over the majority of the length.

Included in the box are:

Power Measurement

• 1x 24-pin ATX plug to 24-pin ATX plug, 20cm (black)
• 2x 4+4-pin EPS plug to 8-pin EPS plug, 20cm (black)
• 3x 6+2-pin PCIE plug to 8-pin PCIE plug, 40cm (black)
• 2x 12+4-pin 12VHPWR plug to 12+4-pin 12VHPWR plug, 40cm (black)

Voltage Input

• 4x 1-pin Dupont male with test hook, 30cm (red, green, yellow, blue)

Fan Ext

• 1x 4-pin to 4-pin fan header receptacle, 30cm (black)

Thermistor

• 2x thin film tip B=3950 to 2-pin JST XH 100cm (black)
• 2x waterproof tip B=3950 to 2-pin JST XH 100cm (black)

RGB

• 1x 3-pin to 3-pin, 30cm (black)

I/O Connector

• 3x 2-pin DuPont female to female 20cm (black)
• 1x USB Type-A to Type-C, 100cm (black)

Standoffs

• 10x 25+6mm M3 nickel-plated copper

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The BenchLab is a PCB designed to reside between the motherboard and the Open Bench Table, allowing for a sleeker aesthetic while maintaining maximum functionality. In the center, BenchLab is very clearly printed, along with OBT's and ElmorLabs's emblems. Everything is clearly marked, with easy-to-read text. Scan the QR code on the board with your smartphone to get the online manual.

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Here, we have the BenchLab's power cable input section. On the far right end are two EPS 8-pin CPUs, a 24-pin motherboard, three 8-pin PCIe, and two 12VHPWR connections. On the other end, there is a TS4 input and another PWM fan header.

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On this side, we have the power output section, which has the same number of connections as the power input section.

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To the right of the power output section is a single 4-pin PWM fan header, a measure voltage section with 8 different readout points, and a single USB 2.0 Type-A port.

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This site shows a few more 4-pin PWM fan headers, a TS3 temperature header, two EPS 8-pin CPU outputs, and a USB Type-C port for inputting diagnostic information to the BenchLab v1.00 software. Two additional USB 2.0 Type-A ports flank the USB Type-C port, making for a total of three USB 2.0 Type-A ports.

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The Benchlab even has 30 ARGB Gen 1 LEDs spread around the underside perimeter to give off some interesting lighting, all of which can be controlled via the BenchLab software.

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The BenchLab, a collaboration between Open Bench Table and ElmorLabs, is designed to be used on either version of the Open Bench Table and is installed on top of the OBT V1. My only real complaint is that it is tough to install PSU cables directly into the BenchLab with a motherboard. Using cable extensions might be the solution; however, be wary of this, as I ran into stability issues using inferior extensions.

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Here is the current PSU test motherboard, the AORUS B650 Elite AX, and its test CPU, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, which is installed right on top of the Benchlab using the riser standoffs included with the Open Bench Table.

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Using the included standoffs, the BenchLab sits neatly under the motherboard.

Test System, Installation, and Finished Product

PSU Test System

Final Thoughts

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The BenchLab software is broken up into status, power, voltage, temperature, fan, RGB, I/O, control panel, settings, and about. Start with status, which shows the device name, status, UID, and firmware version. The configuration section allows the end user to change the friendly name, monitor interval, export data to HWiNFO, export to a CSV file, and, lastly, the CSV file path. Most valuable information is in the power section, including system power, CPU power, EPS power, GPU power, 12VHPWR wattage, and many other useful metrics. The following section, voltage, shows the voltage side of each monitored component.

Moving to the temperature section, we can see the chip temperature, ambient temperature, humidity, and up to four other temperature sensors the user can set up. The fan section is similarly laid out like the previous sections; however, it adds a few drop-down menus to allow for finer tuning of fans. The RGB section, which I am sure you guessed it controls, allows the end user to control the 32 ARGB LEDs spread around the perimeter of the underside of the Benchlab.

The I/O section will enable users to set up different buttons for various functions. The control panel section is pretty basic, showing if the control panel status is connected or disconnected. The next tab is the settings tab, where the user can decide if all the sensors will be visible, customize the color, customize the name, export to HWiNFO, or export to a CSV file. Lastly, the About section shows any URLs needed to get additional support should the user ever need it.

In my last review, which was the Chieftec Polaris Pro 1300w ATX 3.0 PSU, I used BenchLab to monitor voltages, component wattages, and ambient temperature while using the BenchLab software. This information was very useful, especially since it's direct component information rather than relying on software report information, so there is an actual difference.

Having the BenchLab now in our arsenal to gather as much information about PSUs as possible is always a good thing. The BenchLab software also shows all the information needed to make well-informed PSU reviews; this is always good. More information is to be gathered, but for now, this will greatly improve the accuracy of our future PSU reviews. Thanks again to Jon from ElmorLabs and Pieter from OBT for sending out the BenchLab.