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Cooler Master RealPower PRO 1000W |
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Written by Nebojsa Todorovic
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Friday, 14 September 2007 |
When buying a computer, the most painful spot for most of the average users is to give a larger amount of money for the power supply unit. Why give 30 € more for a branded 400 W PSU, if this no-name one states the same wattage? Well, if you are a representative of this group of users, be free to skip this article. You others who know better how to value a high-quality PSU and wish to "feed" your computer with high-quality power, keep on reading.
This article is about the new PSU model from CoolerMaster, belonging to the RealPower PRO series. The large and massive box, which proudly carries the picture of what you will find inside, clearly emphasizes the power of this PSU - 1000 W! Yes, that's right, an entire kilowatt. Also, beside the fact that it can deliver this amount of power, the PSU can pride itself on its efficiency (85%). Upon taking it out of the box, we stumbled upon the cable package and the PSU itself.
RealPower PRO series is special in a certain way - the specification sticker that every PSU wears does not state the maximum deliverable power in a peak (like other PSUs), but the continuous power. This means that this RealPower PRO model can peak at 1200 W! Although CoolerMaster could lose a little with this move (the PSU would probably sell better if it were advertised as "1200 W"), the company obviously cares far more about the trust it gains with its customers. On this we must congratulate and give some praise, because only the most serious of manufacturers draw this type of move. Let's get back to the PSU itself.
This model is modular, which means that you will only use the cables you need at that moment, while you can keep the rest in the nicely designed box. This will enable you to reduce the cable mess inside the computer case, thus increasing airflow. Naturally, the PSU is compliant with all of the current standards, such as Intel ATX V2.2, SSI EPS V2.91 etc. The declared lifetime is 100.000 hours, while the guarantee period is 3 years. We received information from CoolerMaster's Belgrade office that modular PSUs will become a trend in the lower range as well very soon, which will certainly be great news to many.
The PSU is cooled by a 14 cm fan, which makes it quiet and very cool at the same time. Alongside a wide range of implemented protection systems, there was no room for an I/O switch on the PSU. Its absence is allegedly due to the stress caused on components by shutting the power down with an I/O switch, which would be too great with such a powerful PSU. However, that's just about the only possible flaw here. Beside the cable connector, there is also a signal LED, which is supposed to be a sort of a "quick info" about how the PSU is working. One of the things that impressed us is that the PSU possesses six +12 V rails, with 18 A per rail according to the declaration.
CoolerMaster claims that they are the first to successfully implement such a solution. With six rails, this PSU will satisfy even the most demanding. Stability is no issue - an overclocked Core2Duo processor and two 2900XT cards in CrossFire, also overclocked, worked perfectly stable. They say that actions are worth more than words. That's why we'll skip the conclusion and stick our ultimate award on this PSU. You can draw the rest yourselves. |
Power Supply Units 
