Feauters
- 80Plus Bronze Certified unit provides typical 85% efficiency at 50% of max load
- Modular Cable Management to eliminate clutter and improve airflow inside the case
- Compliance with the latest Intel standard ATX 12V V2.3 and EPS 12V V2.92
- Support INTEL/AMD Dual Core CPU and Multi-Core GPU technologies
- 6pin PCI-E & 8pin PCI-E (6+2) connector
- Built in next generation 8-pin PCI-Express graphic card connector offering further upgradability
- Active Power Factor Correction (PF>0.99) for environmentally friendlier power
- Ultra-silent operation with 140mm fan and automatic fan speed control
- Comprehensive protection function provides full-scale protection for your components. (OCP/OVP/UVP/SCP/OPP)
- Safety / EMI Approvals: CE, CB, TUV, FCC, UL, CUL, and BSMI certified
Things to note here:
Obviously, as previously mentioned, this is 80 Plus Bronze certified so it will save good amount of power of time because of its efficiency. Also, Power Factor > 0.99 means that your power company will be pleased with you for not spiking their grid.
Big fan means it will move a lot of air so the temperature will stay low. The big fan doesn’t necessarily mean lower temperature but it usually means it will stay low with low fan noise. So for people who don’t like their PC sounding like an airplane taking off, big fans are usually the way to go.
I’d like to see CoolMax get SLi certification. It is SLi compatible. It definitely has enough power and the right connectors to get two video cards going. That said, SLi certification is also just a little bit more than that, they put the power supplies through series of tests that insure stability and full compatibility with SLi cards. Now the question is did they never apply for it or they didn’t pass the rigorous tests?
Specifications
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Warranty: Coolmax 5 year limited warrantyAs you can see this is a four rail PSU, which means that it has 4 separate wires for each 12V plug. This allows safer power management. One thing that I found, or rather didn’t find, is that I had no idea which rail is 30 amps and which is 20. Now since this is four rail power supply it means that each rail is on different circuit and two circuits support 30 amps the other two support 20 amps. Clearly 20 amps is plenty if you dedicate each rail to a single video card but the documentation does not specify which is which. This creates many confusions.
There are two different kinds of 8 pin connectors. One is for motherboard pin that is often referred to as EPS12V and the other one is for PCI-E cards which is 6+2(they can be separated instead of being one plug). Now the two wires provided on the PSU side are female EPS12V on the other end its 6+2 PCI. The 6 pin PCI can also be used to power the video cards, so you can’t really guess which provides the 30 amps and which provides 20 amps. No documentation really made that clear, not the one provided nor the one on the official website.
5 year warranty is definitely a big plus. If the PSU fails you can replace it as long as you didn’t open it up to looks what’s inside. However, the way they can tell is by putting on a sticker that will rip when trying to open up the PSU. Unfortunately while I took out the PSU the sticker was already half way off. I don’t know if it’s a concern or a plus but you can easily take it off and put it on as you wish. The glue they used on the sticker allows it to come off and stick back on without breaking. Not exactly a great protection. I’m not sure how they would react in case of me returning the PSU and the sticker is half way off like it came in to me.
One major thing to pay attention to is the new motherboard 24-pin-only connector. You MUST make sure your mother board has 24pin connector instead of older 20 pin connector.
One thing I have never seen in any computer component review is how much RF interference it produces.
I just installed a coolmax 1000b Power Supply and it creates so much RF interference that you can’t listen to a FM radio, I had a video card that would do the same thing a few years back, I have noticed that different brands of power supplies generate different amounts of RF interference, aluminum PS tend to generate more than those with steel bodies.