Cooler Master UCP 900W
by Christoph Katzer on July 29, 2008 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Internals
Opening up this unit we find a typical Acbel layout and heatsink design. We saw another power supply from a German company rated at 500W that used the same layout and reached an impressive 88% efficiency. With this power supply boasting the 80Plus Silver certification, we expect it to reach a similar level, so it seems Acbel has really made some progress during the last couple of years. Prior to that, we rarely saw anything but boring, mediocre designs from Acbel, which is why many of Cooler Master's previous products offered only average performance compared to the competition. Now Acbel seems to be pushing newer technologies, and we find several solid polymer aluminum (SPA) capacitors on the secondary side.
Looking at the overall build, and starting from the power input, we find a heavy-duty filtering stage, though several parts are not really secured to anything. The large sister PCB on the right side holds the standby circuit and uses reasonable quality parts. The main capacitors come from Hitachi, which is relatively common in high-end PSUs these days, although this time there are three capacitors. They are all rated at 390µF and 400V, and the three caps are a very nice addition.
On the secondary side, as mentioned above, we see many solid capacitors and a few from Ltec Taiwan. Looking closer at the PCB, there are some indications that there are six 12V rails, but two of the rails won't be in use since this is only a 900W power supply. There's little doubt that we will see a similar design rated at up to 1200W with six rails in the future.
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JarredWalton - Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - link
"We see very little voltage drop on the rails, which is very good. All of the rails are within 2% to 2.5% of regulation, starting slightly higher than the target voltage and dropping slightly below target at higher loads. Ripple on the 12V rails is also exceptionally good, measuring at most 8mV. Lower voltage rails also perform decently, though not quite as good, measuring up to 21mV. The ability of this power supply to deliver the required wattage with little voltage drop even at higher loads leaves us with a good impression."Posting a graph that shows ripple isn't really any more informative than what we did right there: up to 8mV ripple on the 12V rails and 21mV on the 3.3V and 5V lines. You might want to read the text a bit more closely before firing off complaints. We state in the conclusion that the PSU has very good ripple results, and I guess that's probably as far as you got? The previous several pages of test results are there for a reason.
Amart - Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - link
A graph educates people, and shows that you've performed the necessary readings to construct it. Ripple/Noise is arguably one of the most important graphs to have on a review.Sure, you had 'something' in this review, which is an improvement over the last few months.
Christoph Katzer - Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - link
With 78mV no company in the high-end field would have released the product...mindless1 - Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - link
Do you have any evidence that 78mV of ripple has caused any problems by itself, isolated as the variable? The powered parts themselves cause more than 78mV of ripple local to them, where it might matter if it ever did - this if you had a hypothetically perfect 0mV ripple PSU.Zak - Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - link
I found CM products to have competitive prices - but I don't shop for high end stuff - and I've always received their rebates.nycromes - Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - link
I too have only had good experiences with their products and rebates. I have heard that others have experienced problems with rebates, but I don't usually hear many complaints regarding their products.I guess that some people must get a different experience than others, the question is which one of us had the normal experience and which one of us got lucky. Until I have a bad experience, I am sticking with my Coolermaster products.
Glenn - Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - link
You forgot to mention the business model coolermaster has relied on. Sell your product that has a worth of about $25 for retail price of $75 and then offer a $65 rebate that will likely not get paid!Then, when the customer has problems with the product, just make the process to repair or replace so difficult, that only the most persistant buyers will percivere the process to get something done!
Hey, it must be working for them!
JEDIYoda - Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - link
so what does anything you say have to do with this review?For that matter can you back up what your claiming with links??
Glenn - Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - link
It has everything to do with any Coolermaster product review! If the company is poor on customer support, then it affects the value equation for prudent buyers. Sorry you don't understand!Do some reading-
JEDIYoda - Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - link
I do understand very well! It is you that has a axe to grind against the Coolermaster products.The company support and how they handle problems has nothing at all to do with this review of the product!!
Yoyr bitch is against the compant itself...the 2 are very seperate!!
As usual a very well done review!!