Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review

We take a look at an unfamiliar power supply brand with a very interesting feature.

Published
Updated
Manufacturer: Jou Jye Computer
5 minutes & 58 seconds read time

Introduction, Specifications, Availability and Pricing

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 01

Introduction

One of the perks of doing reviews on computer parts and peripherals is that you not only get to work with some of the best names in the industry, but also often get to work with companies who haven't yet made a name for themselves in one way or another. Today we are dealing with the latter in that most of our readers aren't going to have heard of Jou Jye Computer before. This is mostly because the company is known more in the OEM world and is slowly starting to push into the consumer world.

The unit that we are taking a look at today is the BW-B620JL power supply. It is a 620W power supply rated for Bronze level efficiency. The unit has a great list of connectors and 100% Japanese capacitor construction, however that isn't what has us intrigued the most. The unit has the ability to be linked directly with other power supplies from the same line and thus increase the total wattage of your system by running dual power supplies with ease...or more. Let's take a look and see what the BW-B620JL has to offer and just how well it performs.

Specifications, Availability and Pricing

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 02

Taking a look at the paper specs of the BW-B620JL power supply, we find that there are dual 12V rails capable of 24A each, with a combined total output of 48A. Both of the minor rails are capable of the same 24A each, but they have a combined maximum output of 130W. Add in the -12V and 5VSB rails and you have a combined total output of 620W. This certainly is far from powering a quad GPU system, but when linked it could be very close to doing so.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 03

As we can see from the feature summary, there are a few things lacking from the Jou Jye unit. The two big ones are the over temperature protection and lack of being rated for 100% continuous output at 50C. The unit also lacks modular cables, but that is often a personal preference more than anything. It does feature over voltage/power/current protection, cable sleeving and is 80Plus Bronze certified.

Those in the US are going to play hell trying to get their hands on the BW-B620JL at the moment. Jou Jye is currently working on bringing the unit to the US and as such, there isn't any pricing information available either. The unit can be found with some digging in the UK for about £80. This works out to be about $125 USD, so it certainly isn't cheap by any means. By comparison, the last 620W PSU we looked at was the Antec HCG-620 and it had an MSRP of $79.99. There was no mention of warranty from Jou Jye either.

The Packaging

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 04

Jou Jye's packaging is rather simplistic for the BW-B620JL. Little is listed other than the wattage and a few miscellaneous logos on the front of the box.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 05

The back has some more information with efficiency, noise, fan speed and more features. We also find the first mention of linking the power supplies...you'd think they would make a bigger deal out of this as it is their main selling point.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 06

One side of the box has the I/O specification label.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 07

The other has some connector availability information.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 08

Both the top and bottom of the box lack any useful information.

Inside the Box

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 09

Opening the box, we find a neatly packed power supply with the linking instructions right on top. The only protection that the power supply receives on the top, bottom and two sides is that of the external box and a small layer of bubble wrap around the power supply. Our unit arrived undamaged, but we don't think that it would survive much abuse in transit.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 10

Jou Jye placed the I/O specification label on the top of the unit.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 11

Both sides feature the same logo for the BW-B620JL.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 12

The usual honeycomb mesh grill covers the back of the unit and surrounds the on/off rocker switch and AC input.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 13

Since there are no modular cables on the Jou Jye unit, there isn't much to talk about here...Except for the lack of a cable guard where the natively wired cables exit the PSU enclosure.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 14

On the bottom we find the 140mm fan cooling the BW-B620JL.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 15

Also included in the box are the AC power cord, mounting screws, user manual, link cable and link cable instructions.

Cabling Arrangement & A Look Inside

Cabling Arrangement

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 16

Jou Jye gives you a decent list of connectors for a 620W power supply. We say decent because as a single power supply it is a great list, but not so good when paired with a second unit. The main issue here is that you have two PCI-E 6+2 pin connectors, six Molex, nine SATA and one FDD. Add a second unit and you've got 1240W of power with only four PCI-E 6+2 pin connectors and enough peripheral cables to power all the hard drives and optical drives on your city block.

Most who are interested in a unit like this are going to want to power multiple GPUs, especially since you don't need to chain together 10+ hard drives in RAID to get plenty of storage space. Perhaps modular cables would help alleviate this problem a bit.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 17

Rail distribution is kept simple with a single 12V rail. Note that this differs from the I/O specification label. Trace the rails and you'll find this is a single rail PSU. Someone should tell Jou Jye that just because the 12V wires terminate in multiple places on the PCB, that it doesn't necessarily make it a multi-rail PSU.

A Look Inside

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 18

Opening up the unit, some regular readers will notice the familiarity. It looks almost identical to the Antec HCG-620. It looks like Delta is making power supplies for Jou Jye.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 19

There is a single Nippon Chemi-Con capacitor on the primary side.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 20

Nippon Chemi-Con capacitors are found on the secondary side as well.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 21

Jou Jye chose the ADDA 140mm fan, model AD1212HB-A71GL to cool the BW-B620JL.

Test Results & Final Thoughts

Test Results

Our load tests utilize a couple of FAST ATE active load testers and a variety of other equipment such as an oscilloscope, power conditioner, temperature probe and a power consumption meter. You can read more about our standard testing approach here.

The tests performed are based around six conceivable setups that are out there and progressively load down the PSU up to the power supply's limits or 1000W, whichever comes first. Since our test equipment's limits are higher than that of the Jou Jye BW-B620JL, we can test it to the maximum.

Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 22
Jou Jye BW-B620JL 620W Power Supply Review 23

One nice thing about knowing that the Jou Jye BW-B620JL is almost identical to that of the Antec HCG-620 is that we have something to compare it to. As you can see, the BW-B620JL has excellent voltage regulation. Although the regulation isn't quite as high as we saw with the Antec unit, it still performs within 1%. Asking for better regulation is being way too picky.

Just as we saw with the Antec unit, we experienced somewhat of a less than desirable DC output quality with the BW-B620JL. The unit started off in Test 1 with 28mV of ripple on the scope. During Test 2, this had already reached a reading of 41mV peak to peak on the 12V rail. This climbed even more during Test 3, reaching a maximum of 56mV. By the time we hit the end of the last test, we were looking at 67mV of noise peak to peak. ATX specifications allow for up to 120mV of noise, however it is nice to see it kept under 50mV.

Jou Jye's BW-B620JL comes rated for Bronze efficiency from the 80Plus organization. This means the power supply must be 82%/85%/82% efficient at 20%/50%/100% loads respectively. Our unit does so with plenty of room to spare and we have no complaints about the unit here.

Final Thoughts

Just as we saw with the HCG-620, there are a slew of reasons that steer you both towards and away from the unit. On the plus side, you've got excellent voltage regulation and build quality. This is balanced out by the poor DC output quality and lack of a few key features. Sadly enough, the scales tip away from being in your favor if the price ends up being even close to what it costs in Europe.

At this point in time, you're surely wondering about the most intriguing feature of the BW-B620JL PSU. You'll have to keep reading and come back another day as we are giving this feature its own coverage. Stay tuned as this will be available for your reading pleasure soon.

What do TweakTown.com awards mean? Click for details!

PRICING: You can find products similar to this one for sale below.

USUnited States: Find other tech and computer products like this over at Amazon.com

UKUnited Kingdom: Find other tech and computer products like this over at Amazon.co.uk

AUAustralia: Find other tech and computer products like this over at Amazon.com.au

CACanada: Find other tech and computer products like this over at Amazon.ca

DEDeutschland: Finde andere Technik- und Computerprodukte wie dieses auf Amazon.de

Newsletter Subscription
We openly invite the companies who provide us with review samples / who are mentioned or discussed to express their opinion. If any company representative wishes to respond, we will publish the response here. Please contact us if you wish to respond.