Xigmatek NRP-HC1001 and NRP-HC1201 Power Supplies
by Christoph Katzer on April 13, 2008 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Conclusion
Xigmatek is a rather new company on the market, and they have gained fame through their good CPU coolers. The prices have always been fair and people get one of the best price-performance ratios possible. With power supplies, the company has tried to venture into new territories. Like many others, they chose CWT as the manufacturer for their power supplies - given the design has found so many buyers, it's reasonable to assume CWT is doing their job well. Maybe it’s simply a low buying price or generally good performance. Other companies have made claims that the basic CWT design is practically unusable as there are too many flaws inherent in the design. However, there are more and more companies using CWT-based designs, and we have not encountered any difficulties with the latest releases. If there were any flaws previously, they have apparently been corrected.
Xigmatek delivered good performance today with their CWT-manufactured unit, so Xigmatek is already making a good standard in the market place. The build quality is, as usual, very good - what we would expect from such a unit in this higher end field. They also provide a very innovative package design which will definitely prove to be an eye-catcher once these units are on display in a shop. Most importantly, the unit build quality is very good and it withstood our tests without sweating.
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There are enough cable harnesses and connectors on this unit to power up massive disk arrays and triple-SLI systems. We think it's strange that companies always seem to provide the same number of SATA and Molex connectors, but the demand for Molex connectors is still high, so we won’t see a drop in the number of Molex connectors in the near future. For modular power supplies, we think it's a good idea to include a few extra harnesses so that end users can choose to have either more SATA connectors or more Molex connectors.
With six PEG connectors, these two power supplies can power up every triple-SLI system available. 1000W is actually the lowest power supplies that NVIDIA will officially certify for triple-SLI, even though it isn't always necessary particularly on high-end models. We personally are running a triple-SLI system with three 8800 Ultra graphics cards, a quad-core Core 2 Extreme, and eight hard drives; this is all running with our special edition PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 860.
At the end of the day, performance is what counts, and both of the units were really good. The voltage didn’t drop too much on any rail, regardless of what load we applied. Ripple does seem to be a problem, since there were slightly higher results on both units (similar to other CWT manufactured PSUs), but that’s nothing to worry about since everything is still within specification.
From the efficiency graphs you will see that it really doesn’t make sense to run these power supplies with a wannabe system. You need a serious load applied to the power supply in order to reach a good efficiency rating. We said earlier that a good start would be 500W as a normal load, and that is surely not possible with single or dual graphics cards. These power supplies are made for the most hardcore PC enthusiasts who know how to overclock a quad-core triple-SLI system; otherwise, these units will fall asleep delivering only a few hundred watts of power. At 500W, we measured 87% efficiency with an AC input of 230 volts. US citizens with 120VAC will have the need to be happy with 84%, which is still a very good result. These units have a very long period of good efficiency that starts at 500W and ends at a massive 1000W power consumption, and that's the power delivered to the PC. The wall outlet will have to deliver around 1200W of power draw! For reference, that's similar to the amount of power used by many larger household vacuums!
Turning to the price tables, we mentioned in the beginning that Xigmatek offers its coolers at very attractive prices. Can they do the same for their power supplies? We took the liberty to compare the prices to their direct competitor, Thermaltake’s quite similar Toughpower series. On the graphs we see prices in Europe and the U.S and we also see two different price strategies. While Xigmatek has better prices than Thermaltake in the US, they fall behind in Europe where the prices are always at least 10 EUR higher than their competitor. We don’t want to be too melodramatic about 10 EUR, but a higher price is a higher price. It might also be that Xigmatek is just in its early years and doesn’t have equal sales channels compared to a company like Thermaltake. In the US, Newegg has competitive pricing on the Xigmatek units; if you're searching for a high-end power supply, they are certainly worth a look. Besides their performance, users also get an attractive box and a nice looking PSU.
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HOOfan 1 - Monday, April 14, 2008 - link
well read the article then. They state it is made by CWT...just like the Thermaltake Toughpower, the Xclio Greatpower, The Corsair HX1000, The Gigabyte Odins and several others.C'DaleRider - Monday, April 14, 2008 - link
[quote]We have heard from other companies that the basic CWT design is practically unusable as there are too many flaws inherent in the design.[/quote]So, you've take some rumor, FUD, innuendo, whatever from one competitor about another without naming the source, investigating anything, pointing out the specific design flaws....yet print that "claim" as gospel?
Your credibility has just taken another nosedive. Or you've become nothing more than a paid mouthpiece for other companies....maybe like PCP&C, because that comment above sure does sound just like the FUD advertisements PCP&C ran back in 2003 against "unspecified" power supply sellers.
The ads were aimed at Antec even though the example PSU (PCP&C named the PSU as a "550W" but left the brand as a blank, but we all know who had a popular 550W back in 2003 when those ads were popping up in certain magazines) was clearly not a CWT build because they had an example unit shown with the case opened.
In fact, the PSU from that old ad looked like a Thermaltake 550W but with a unpainted casing rather than the black casing that Thermaltake used at that time. If you've got any Maximum PC mags from 2003 you can find easily the ads.
It always suspected that PC P&C was trying to point fingers at Antec and this review pretty much verifies that suspicions were correct in this guess. The sad thing is that if you take one of those CWT built Antecs and load and scope it, one will find that it was a competent unit with all the power it promised at better than 3% regulation and decent ripple. Had CWT not been hobbled with using the caps that Antec specifically asked for (Fuhjyyus), that particular build would be remembered very differently.
whatthehey - Monday, April 14, 2008 - link
Seriously, shut the hell up and RTFA! They comment about some CWT builds having issues, but then they also point out that the overall performance of the latest CWT designs seems very good... as this review shows. I love how people get their pants in a bind over one little sentence/paragraph in an article."OMG, you talked about how people in the past said CWT sucks, but you're still reviewing them favorably! You're bought out by the competition AND by the company whose power supply you're reviewing! In fact, Intel and NVIDIA own you and pay for everything you write! I'm going to go read HardOCP instead, since they're only bought out by AMD!"
Give it a rest already. The only credibility taking a nosedive (again) is related to average reading comprehension and apparently already biased opinion. Hell, go back to reading Maximum PC and let the people that actually know hardware do their thing here.
C'DaleRider - Monday, April 14, 2008 - link
I love people who comment about things they know nothing about.In reality, CWT has made no changes to their designs....not a single thing. Of course, you might know this if you managed to ever read previous reviews of CWT-built power supplies from a few years ago...but who are you to bother to read and get any facts, but instead attack and rant about something you know nothing about.
The fact of the matter is Anandtech, and this particular reviewer, chose to publish a condemnation of CWT designs of their power supplies, then supposes there has been an update to their designs. But nowhere does the reviewer ever point out the fatal flaws, the redesigns, or any other fact.....just innuendo and FUD from a competitor....and using that FUD as fact.
That'd be akin to someone printing that whatthehey was a pedophile years ago but is much better now, or that whatthehey was previously unable to hold down a productive job because of rumors of drug use, but is now a drug-free recovering addict.
Just because someone says something, doesn't mean it's true, does it? In the case of this power supply review, AT has really opened themselves up to some critical looking at, maybe by a company that has its reputation called into question. It's called libel.....
JarredWalton - Monday, April 14, 2008 - link
Keep the flames elsewhere, people.I have edited the text slightly in this paragraph to better reflect the intended meaning. Acknowledging that competitors are bad-mouthing a design isn't the same thing as saying the competitors are telling the truth. While I'm sure you'd all love a conspiracy theory, Christoph didn't include that statement to make CWT look bad. (Libel? Please.)
If you look around, you can find information on the Internet that implies CWT is a terrible source for PSUs. Like many larger companies, they have certainly had some bad designs, but the current high-end offerings are very good. (Not so sure I'd say the same thing for many of the 300-450W CWT offerings, though....)
As an ODM, CWT makes PSUs according to the specifications they receive; if a company wants to use less expensive components in order to keep price down, they will comply. In fact, it's safe to say that if you take any basic PSU design and replace all the components with inexpensive, lower rated parts, efficiency and quality will quickly take a nosedive.
Has anything changed with the basic build of CWT PSUs? I couldn't say; I've never dismantled an older CWT unit or a new design. Christoph has, though, so if he wants to imply that some changes were made to improve quality, I'm willing to trust him. (I'd tell him to respond, but he's apparently traveling for the next couple of weeks.)
Kanchenjunga - Monday, April 14, 2008 - link
The reviewer makes a claim about design flaws (without stating what those are) and then assumes that the flaws must have been fixed. It's clear from that alone that he has no idea what these design flaws are supposed to be or he would have told us just what it is that's been fixed.He's trying to market himself as having some kind of insight or inside info regarding CWT's "basic design" and fails at it.
HOOfan 1 - Monday, April 14, 2008 - link
I was also a bit suprised at the opening line of the new OCZ ElitXstream"One look inside tells us what ODM is at the heart of the design, which dimmed our expectations a bit"
Why was that? Impervio has certainly have better quality in the recent past than OCZ's other OEM, FSP.
Carnildo - Monday, April 14, 2008 - link
You say they make a 1500-watt power supply? Does it have a three-phase plug, is it better than 90% efficient at full load, or are they simply assuming that nobody will ever use it at full load? US domestic circuits are usually rated at 15 amps, which means that at 110 volts, the line can only deliver 1650 watts.Heidfirst - Monday, April 14, 2008 - link
UK domestic circuits can handle over 3000 watts ...HOOfan 1 - Monday, April 14, 2008 - link
Who pray tell said that.Come come now, if those companies want to fling mud then at least their identities should be exposed
"Seems like someone is spreading FUD, possibly while high, PC Power and Cooling I'm looking at you"