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Entry Level Power Supply Roundup

Not everyone needs 1200 honking watts of power sitting in their new computer build. Not much has changed there. But what has changed is the enthusiast brands of power supplies that will now occupy the entry level PSU space. We have a few PSUs for you today that will not break the bank.

Introduction

Previously we have done 450w-500w and $50 Roundups in which we examined power supplies that usually don’t get covered by enthusiast sites for various reasons; the most notable reason being these products are not “enthusiast quality” units. While the results of both of those reviews were entertaining in that they provided some fireworks, they were also disappointing in that there were very few passable results available at those times. Fast forward to today, and we have seen Corsair make a big name for themselves in the enthusiast power supply market through its quality units that for the longest time peaked in capacity in the realm that normally has held the entry level units of other brands. Following this successful strategy we have begun to notice a few more brands trickle into this range with some real quality offerings such as Seasonic, BFG, and others. Today, we have collected up a few more of these units to see what else has crept into this market segment over the last year or so.

Cooler Master Co. LTD is a company that is well known for producing enthusiast computer cases and has been in business for almost 25 years. In addition to cases Cooler Master has product lines for CPU and GPU heatsinks, case fans, various accessories, and what we are interested in today, power supplies. To date all of the Cooler Master units we have reviewed have been from Cooler Master’s higher end products. Today however, we look at one of their entry level power supplies the Cooler Master eXtreme Power 500w (RS-500-PCAR-A3) that Cooler Master markets in conjunction with Acbel Polytech. AcBel Polytech Inc is a power supply OEM who has never really made the radar for most consumers but they have one of the lengthier histories in the business having been founded in 1981 as API Technology Co. The company began producing power supplies in 1983, and by 1996 underwent a massive reorganization while changing names to the now familiar AcBel Polytech Inc. AcBel Polytech is most familiar to consumers through their OEM efforts with ASUS and Cooler Master power supplies but in addition to these consumer products they also offer a range of server power supplies, OEM power supplies, telco power supplies, and various other components in the field.

Corsair has been known among enthusiast circles as a premier supplier of high performance memory for quite some time now and has recently risen to become one of the most talked about power supply brands around. Corsair was able to establish such an amazing presence in such a short time through the use of quality OEMs (Seasonic and CWT), rigorous standards, and excellent support. To date Corsair has focused on the lower capacity units as they have produced a huge variety of units between 400w and 620w. Today we will be looking at the newest, and lowest capacity, unit in Corsair’s lineup the Corsair CX400W (CMPSU-400CX) that is produced with Seasonic. Seasonic is one of the older companies producing consumer power supplies having been founded in 1975 and entering the PC power supply production market in 1980. During that more than 30 years as a company Seasonic has cultivated lines of power supplies that are today some of the standard bearers for efficiency and quiet computing. This focus, and their reputation for quality, has lead to a real explosion in production as Seasonic can be found providing OEM services on various model lines for Antec, Corsair, PC Power and Cooling, and of course under their own Seasonic brand.

Previously in our reviews Newegg has branded power supplies under their former parent company, now subsidiary, ABS. However, for much longer than that Newegg has branded power supplies (and a huge range of other peripherals and components) under their house label Rosewill. Today, we have our first look at one of these house branded Rosewill units in the guise of the RP500-2 manufactured by ATNG. ATNG Power Co. LTD (I Horng Power Co. LTD) is one of the larger providers of power supplies in various markets including the US and is fairly well known to many users. As a company ATNG has been in business since 1987 and currently has a production capacity of ~900,000 units a month. ATNG branded power supplies can be found under other brands such as Rosewill, older BFGTech models, Coolmax, StarTech.com, the ATNG brand itself, and others. Typically ATNG power supplies have not been what most users have considered to be a premier product offering but with the increased competition in the power supply market of late ATNG has released a number of new products that are of great interest to us including today’s StarTech.com branded unit.

The Xigmatek brand is one of the newer faces in the enthusiast DIY market having been launched in 2005. However, Xigmatek’s parent company may be more familiar to the storage minded individuals as Micro Technology Concepts, Inc. or MTC Direct which has been around since 1989. With the establishment of the Xigmatek brand Micro Technology Concepts, Inc. has expanded into some new niches as they now brand products that include CPU coolers, VGA coolers, fans, and power supplies. Having moved away from their roots of distributing storage products Xigmatek has chosen Channel Well Technology as their OEM partner for the NRP series of power supplies including today’s NRP-PC501. Channel Well Technology was founded and began manufacturing power supplies in 1993. Since 1993 Channel Well Technology products have shown up under various guises including Antec, Xclio, 2theMax, CWT, Thermaltake, Corsair, Koolance, and Xigmatek among many others. While most familiar to our US users under the Antec brand CWT is one of the more complete OEM manufacturers as they have a fairly high level of vertical integration providing transformers all the way up to their well designed independently regulated SMPS.

Now that we have briefly covered the units we will be reviewing today let’s move right along to the first power supply, the Cooler Master eXtreme Power 500w and see if this set of units can do better than the last two roundups.