Cooler Master UCP 900W

Conclusion

As the first retail power supply to bear the 80Plus Silver badge, the Cooler Master UCP 900W certainly deserves some recognition. Some users might be able to stop right there and determine that's all they need to see before they run out and purchase a power supply, but we prefer to be a bit more circumspect. Up to 89% efficiency (87% on 115VAC) is a great result, but in order to reach that level of efficiency you will need to have a system drawing between 400 and 700W of power - and that's no mean feat. Furthermore, compared to a unit with "only" 86% efficiency (84% on 115VAC), you're looking at the difference of 20W at the outlet for a system that's using 500W of power. Running 24/7, that works out to somewhere around $13-$18 per year, and if you only use a system eight hours a day you're really only looking at about $5 per year in savings.

In short, an 80Plus certification indicates a certain level of quality and efficiency, and 80Plus Silver certification means potentially higher efficiency and in theory higher quality. The reality is that it's mostly marketing, and you will need to carefully evaluate your system requirements before determining whether such a badge is truly useful. All else being equal, the 80Plus Silver certification is a nice extra, but more likely than not you're going to be spending quite a bit more money for the privilege of owning such a product.

Even if there's a lot of marketing hype surrounding a product, that doesn't necessarily mean the product isn't worth buying, and the Cooler Master UCP 900W certainly has other points in its favor. It has a unique appearance that some users will really like, and the large "Ultimate" stickers will help you rest easy knowing that you have a really special PSU. The internal build quality is generally good, with a good choice of components; temperatures stay very low; and as expected we see very high efficiency levels over a large range of power output. The voltage regulation is also good, with little voltage drop or ripple. Finally, you get a 5-year warranty, which is better than most of the competitors (though there's no 48-hour service guarantee, unfortunately). These are all the good points, but what about the bad?

The distribution of the four 12V rails certainly leave something to be desired, with a large number of peripherals being powered by one 25A 12V rail. That rail handles the ATX12V 4-pin connector, the main 24-pin connector, and the peripheral connectors for hard drives and other devices. In certain systems, it would certainly be possible to overload this rail, particularly with an overclocked quad-core processor, several hard drives, and a high-end GPU sitting in your first PCI Express slot. We also felt that the cables tended to be on the shorter side of things for a 900W PSU, and in full tower cases users may not be able to reach all the necessary components.

The flipside of the low temperatures we recorded is that noise levels get a bit higher than we would like, at least at maximum load. If you are looking for a silent power supply, it's unlikely you will need a 900W PSU to begin with, and there are certainly quieter options on the market. If the power draw is below 350W, noise levels should be below 20dB, but then you will be in the less efficient operating range for this power supply. In short, you need to run a high-end system that has peak power requirements of at least 500W, to make use of the full potential this power supply has to offer.

The final remaining question is pricing, which is a bit difficult to determine at this time. Looking online, we were able to find exactly one retailer in the US, with a price of $250. Even better, they are currently out of stock (or perhaps not yet in stock). There are definitely power supplies with similar quality - and without the 12V rail distribution problems - available for less money. Even if the price is right, Cooler Master really needs to address the 12V rail problem before we can recommend this power supply; as it stands, that appears to be the Achilles' heel of the UCP 900W, which is unfortunate. Hopefully, it can be easily corrected, and we will update this article if we hear anything more on the subject.