Verdict and Conclusion
I came into this review with high hopes, PC Power and Cooling has been doing an excellent job lately, and some mid range 80+ Gold units sounded like a great way to flesh their offerings out.
In testing this unit did quite well, the regulation is a hair over 1%, which is very good indeed. The ripple control on the 12 V rail (the most important) is also quite good, while the 3.3V and 5V lag behind somewhat. It’s all solidly within spec though, so no issues there.
The looks of the unit are great, if you like white/monochrome. As it happens I do like it.
The cable selection is good, I’d like a couple more Molex plugs ideally, and to have one of the CPU power cables moved onto the modular bits, but those are fairly small gripes.
The fan was disappointing, the previous PC Power and Cooling units I’ve tested have been fairly quiet or very quiet. This one is quiet at low loads as the fan doesn’t spin at low loads. Once the fan starts though, I’m not impressed.
The modular cable setup is fairly unique, while it takes up more space and takes a bit more time I like it. It is very solid.
The build quality is a mixed bag, on one hand the parts selection is great, no problems there at all. On the other hand the torn trace on the mains AC input is very disappointing. That should not have left the factory.
Price wise, at the current price of $149 this unit is in the same ballpark as similar units. The matching units have been out for a while and have had a price cut or two while this unit is brand new. I’ll call the price “good”, if it gets cut $10-$20 after a few months (as most things do at online retailers) I’d call it very good.
To summarize, there are pros:
- Very good regulation.
- Good ripple control on 12V.
- Good cable selection.
- Looks great, white is the New Hotness.
- Screw-in modular plugs will not come out without help. Very nice.
There are some cons too though:
- Fan has annoying mechanical noise in the mid range.
- A torn mains AC trace made it through QC.
- Two hard wired CPU power cables is silly on a 750W unit.
Final words. All told this is an excellent unit that got held back by a strangely noisy fan and some QC issues that really should have been caught. Despite the long Pro list, I’m forced to give a rather low for the electrical performance 7.7/10 rating. Hopefully Superflower and PC Power and Cooling will get the QC issues fixed up, when they do this will be a very good unit.
SCORE
7.7/10
