Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/2472



Introduction

Today we will be looking at new products in the power supply and case markets. We have seen many new power supplies from various manufacturers, which is definitely a good thing. Even though we did not find new innovative PCB designs, FSP (Fotron Systems) came up with a clever PCB that will reach higher levels of efficiency. In general, we saw even more companies going with Channel Well (CWT) for their PSU manufacturing; this is not really a good development for the user since we now have numerous high-end brands that now offer similar products, the only difference being a few changed caps and the exterior.

We have heard from several companies that it's currently difficult to find a really good PSU vendor, since most of them have severe problems with ripple and noise for example. Each company needs to tweak their models quite a bit so that they can provide a decent quality level. Still, there were some surprises in the power supply field this year, the chief surprise being quantity. At former shows we never saw so many new product introductions; in the past, nearly all PSU companies already did that online a month prior to CeBIT.

Now let's look at what the various companies had to show this year in the case and power areas.

Cooler Master

Cooler Master introduced a completely new lineup of power supplies. The new products are marketed under the Silent Pro, Ultimate Warranty Protection, and Extreme Power M brands. The Silent Pro series comes with lower wattages of around 450W-700W. A bigger eye-catcher is the Ultimate Warranty Protection series, or UWP.

UWP comes in an innovative design and aims for the higher-end users with around 700W-1100W. The surface of the power supplies comes with a rough texture and could be used as sand paper. Most of the power supplies we saw at the Cooler Master booth were modular, allowing the user to unplug unused cables. The efficiency should also be good, with Cooler Master brochures showing up to 86%. The release date will be in the June timeframe, so don't expect these PSUs for a couple more months.

Gallery: Cooler Master

Corsair

Over at Corsair we met up with George, who explained the hassle of getting a good manufacturer to help produce an even better product. Corsair just released the HX1000W, which is the first 1000W PSU certified for NVIDIA's 3-way-SLI. It of course comes with all the necessary connectors and looks similar to the previously released power supplies of Corsair. It will be available soon (within the next month it appears) and we are looking forward to reviewing our sample.



Gigabyte

Gigabyte used a small corner of their booth to show their power supplies, including the 800W Odin that we already reviewed. The Odin series is currently Gigabyte's first and only PSU brand, which is now adding bigger brothers with 1000W and 1200W models. Another eye-catcher at the booth was the memory water-cooling - a little overkill for some people, but for those pushing to get every last drop of performance from their RAM it could prove useful.

Gallery: Gigabyte

HEC / Compucase

HEC / Compucase is a rather conservative known for their power supplies in the system builder field. The company has served that market for many years, and recently they decided to take a step into the retail market. We saw the first versions a few years back, which didn't look very good since they used on an older topology with passive PFC. The company is now introducing the Cougar series, available in black and in bronze (the latter of which actually looks light brown).

We had the chance to open up a sample and inspect the inside. The filtering stage is well designed, with more components than the average power supply. All the installed capacitors are made by Teapo. HEC claims an efficiency of up to 85%, which might actually be possible with this model. We will be testing some of these models soon and will provide additional information at that time.

Lian Li

Lian Li showed a large lineup of cases at their booth, all made of aluminum of course. Lian Li did just introduce a hybrid case not long ago that will actually have a steel body, however. The front will still be aluminum to keep with the company tradition. There are several other new cases coming out that we will be reviewing shortly. Lian Li also displayed a new case that users can use to provide an Xbox 360 with better cooling - and potentially better looking, depending on personal taste.

Lian Li focuses on medium and large towers, leaving the gaudy/exotic creations for other companies. The designs look very sleek and are similar to what we normally see from Lian Li. We also saw several power supplies from Lian Li, based on the same topology that Xigmatek and Hiper use - and we all know where they come from (CWT).

Gallery: Lian Li

NesteQ

The company NesteQ is more known in the European regions even though it is a Taiwanese company. We were told that there are several US retailers with NesteQ products, something we will look into once we are back home. The reason we wanted to show their products is that they are famous for their semi-passive power supplies. These designs run most of the time without activating the fan. A fan is present, however, and it will start turning at higher loads and heat levels.

The company features several different models, with a new 700W model introduced at the show. This model has several advantages over the older versions, the primary one being that the housing is covered with small ventilation holes, similar to what we have seen with several Hiper models in previous roundups.

Gallery: NesteQ



OCZ and PC Power & Cooling

OCZ added another color to the PCP&C Silencer series. The Silencer 750 is now also available in blue, which is not as nice looking as the red edition (Ed: at least in some reviewer's opinion). OCZ told us that there might also be a Lamborghini-like yellow version coming, which might be even cooler than the red edition; we will see. OCZ also introduced a 500W Silencer power supply that we are looking forward to testing soon.

Another addition to the lineup is the EliteXStream series, introduced at CES this year. The new series has final status now and will ship very soon. We already had the chance for a sneak peek into this new series, and it is performing very well indeed. A review will come very soon. Also on display was the new Turbo Cool 1200W ESA edition, first shown at CES. We tested the normal 1200W edition and found a decent quality PSU. The ESA model now has final status and will ship soon.

Scythe

Scythe is a Japanese company famous for their extraordinarily big and high-performance coolers. At CeBIT last year, we saw several of their first attempts in the power supply market, and it now looks like they have finished samples ready for mass-production. Unfortunately, we had no chance to look inside, but from the outside it looks like an Impervio-made product.

The rest of the booth focuses on their coolers. All the coolers use heatpipe technology, with plenty of them to provide the best cooling possible - or at least close to it. One cooler even came up with 10 heatpipes and a huge fan. The fins aren't spaced as close to each other anymore, but that would have made the cooler extraordinary heavy as well limiting airflow. We will have to see how it actually performs in actual use, however - hopefully sooner rather than later.

Gallery: Scythe

Silverstone

There wasn't much new at the Silverstone booth, since they showed the same products we saw at CES just two months ago. Silverstone developed the products internally and they either are close to mass production or are already at that stage. Some of the cases Silverstone developed over the years are really innovative, such as the Sugo series. The ESA model is shipping to resellers now and should be available for purchase very soon. With the Commander, users will be able to use the ESA function without actually owning an ESA certified case. We don't know how it will work out, but it seems the power supply or motherboard at least will need to be ESA models. We will see how this works out in the near future.

Gallery: Silverstone


Thermaltake

Thermaltake has a 2000W power supply at their booth. Yes: Two Thousand Watts! To show how ridiculous this kind of power supply is the company is powering two systems at the same time with a single power supply. The one system contains an SLI setup and the other has four cards in a Crossfire-X setup. (Ed: Yeah, that sounds tremendously useful: a single point of failure for two systems. I suppose maybe it might be useful for a test bench area, though.)

A little more interesting is the new lineup of TR2 power supplies that start at just 300W. Unfortunately, most manufacturers have neglected the 300W-400W market, so users need to go for a Seasonic (Ed: nothing wrong with that, though certainly not inexpensive) or generic brand power supply. It's nice to see another major manufacturer returning to this market, especially in light of the fact that many PCs still rarely need more than 200W. Like many of NVIDIA's other partners, Thermaltake also displayed a running ESA system.

Gallery: Thermaltake

Zalman

The Zalman booth features several 3D monitors to attract passing people. Concerning coolers, we didn't actually find anything new. A smaller part of their booth shows the power supplies. Zalman's latest lineup starts at just 360W and goes up to 1000W. The latest additions of 750W, 850W, and 1000W are probably made by Enhance, which is a good manufacturer for this segment. One interesting innovation is that all of the power supplies have heatpipes installed, which help move most of the heat from the inside of the PSU to the heatsink near the back of the power supply.

Gallery: Zalman

Miscellaneous

Arctic Cooling already showed their new power supply at CES, and it seems they are getting close to a final sample now. The power supply has an 80mm fan installed, which is located on the front of the PSU and blows air into the power supply.

We met with the representatives of Super Talent, a company more known for memory. Their newly introduced power supply is named Atomic Juice, which is either a silly name or excellent marketing. It seems the power supply comes from FSP and uses a rather old design. The first model will come rated at 600W, since Super Talent wants to start in that popular market.

Amacrox is another company that doesn't do much in the US (yet), but in Europe this brand of FSP-manufactured PSUs is selling quite well. We have already tested one power supply, and the Calmer 2 is merely waiting for us to publish our review. The Calmer 2 is a very interesting power supply since it has no fan and is therefore completely silent. There are also 1200W versions available, but they include a 135mm fan since it's not feasible to run such a PSU without active cooling. One interesting footnote with Amacrox is that most of their power supplies ship in metal boxes, which can be used for several other things after the power supply is mounted in a case.

Gallery: Miscellaneous

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