Posted:2006-04-12 By hardware review Number of View:5744
A.C. RYAN RYANPOWER2 CABLEFREE
ACR-PS2100 (550W) - RYAN
RYANPOWER2 CABLEFREE REVIEW
By :hardware review
Posted:2006-04-12
xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source
A.C. Ryan Ryanpower2 CableFree ACR-PS2100 (550W)
Three out of the five companies whose products I’m going to present to you take part in our tests for the first time. They are Sunbeamtech, Ultra Products and Zippy. The last name is especially thrilling as it belongs to a well-known company that has made a reputation making power supplies for server systems, but now also offers a home user-oriented series under the telling name of Gaming Power.
I want to answer a question from our reader first. It’s not a secret there are many more brands PC power supplies are selling under than actual manufacturers of power supplies, so why don’t I name the real manufacturer for every tested product? Well, I only do so if I am absolutely sure about the name. For example, there can be the manufacturer’s native marking on the power supply’s PCB, or the UL certificate is issued in the manufacturer’s name, or the PSU looks to me exactly like some model from a company which is known to be a PSU manufacturer (you can open up power supplies from Zalman and Nexus to see they are identical to certain models from FSP Group; and no one can have any doubt that FSP is the real manufacturer of its power supplies). But there may be no marking on the PCB; the UL certificate number is not always printed on the label; and I haven’t yet seen all the PSU models in this world – although I’m trying – as to be able to identify one PSU as identical to another. In this case I either do not touch upon the problem of the actual manufacturer of the particular power supply (and it may well be that the company whose brand the PSU comes out under is indeed its real manufacturer) or share with you my suspicions if the unit seems to me similar to a product from a well-known manufacturer. To cut it short, I consider the company whose brand is on the PSU’s label as the real manufacturer of the PSU unless there’s a proof of the opposite.
Now that we’ve cleared this matter out, let’s move on to the power supplies to be tested
A.C. Ryan Ryanpower2 CableFree ACR-PS2100 (550W)
And now I am about to discuss the 500W ACR-PS2100.
The two units are identical on the outside: a dark-lacquered and scratches-susceptible case, two cooling fans, and an input voltage of 220V sharp. This unit cannot work in 110V power networks notwithstanding its active PFC.
Here are the PSU’s cable connectors. And it’s all the same as with the ACR-PS2094 model: the cables are all detachable (many such PSUs come with a dead-soldered mainboard cable – have you ever seen a computer without a mainboard?); there are still no separate SATA power cables with +3.3V voltage (SATA power cables are connected to the PATA power connectors); there is still a 4-pin connector for the CPU. The latter is a drawback even if you’ve got a mainboard with a 4-pin connector. Contemporary processors consume high enough currents and any extra connector in the circuit only results in useless heating, unreasonable wattage loss and lower stability of the supply voltage. I think if the manufacturer decides to make a detachable CPU cable, they should make it an 8-pin one. Doubling the number of pins reduces the connector resistance in two times and thus reduces its effect on the whole CPU power circuit in two times, too.
Most of the user manual is dedicated to a harangue on how this power supply suits the modding community and how its detachable cables free you from the necessity to follow the ever-changing industry standards. I don’t quite grasp the author’s idea here because this power supply doesn’t meet even today’s requirements even at the time of its release (it lacks such presently common things as +3.3V power for SATA drives, an 8-pin connector for the CPU, and a power cable for the graphics card).
inside A.C. Ryan Ryanpower2 CableFree ACR-PS2100 (550W)
Inside the PSU case the connectors are fastened on a small card which is then connected to the main PCB. I had some complaints about the soldering quality of the ACR-PS2094. It is much neater here – at least the ends of the wires are tightened with a shrinkable pipe
inside A.C. Ryan Ryanpower2 CableFree ACR-PS2100 (550W)
The internal design of this PSU is analogous to the junior model and also resembles power supplies from Channel Well (CWT). I do not claim, however, that CWT is the actual manufacturer of A.C.Ryan’s power supplies as there is no evidence of that (the manufacturer’s marking on the PCB, an UL certificate number, etc.) apart of my subjective impressions. I even can’t really name a CWT model that is absolutely identical to the Ryanpower2. There is some similarity, and that’s all.
The PSU features independent voltage regulation (the three choke coils in the left of the snapshot) and active PFC (the separate card with a heatsink in the right of the snapshot).
The PSU complies with the ATX12V 2.0 standard, but the allowable load on the +12V rail is but slightly above the requirements to 400W models (29A as opposed to the ACR-PS2100’s 30A). On the other hand, the Ryanpower2 has a good load capacity of the +5V and +3.3V rails, but the question is if you really need it in practice? It may come in handy in old computers, but such systems can hardly need a 500W PSU.
The following cables are supplied with this power supply:
Mainboard cable with two connectors: a 24-pin on the PSU end and a 20-pin on the mainboard end; it is 47cm long
CPU cable with 4-pin ATX12V connectors on both ends; 48cm
One cable with three Molex connectors and one floppy drive connector; 28cm to the first plug and then 9cm more to each next plug
Two cables with three Molex connectors on each; 28cm+13cm+13cm
One cable with three SATA power connectors on each; 28cm+10cm+10cm
One cable for powering external fans with four connectors; 28cm to the first plug and 13cm more to each next plug
An adapter from two Molex connectors to one 6-pin graphics card connector
As I mentioned above, it’s impossible to connect normal SATA connectors with 3-volt power (the enclosed connectors just lack this wire) or a separate graphics card cable to this power supply. You will also have to purchase another mainboard cable if your mainboard has a 24-pin power connector; the enclosed cable has a 20-pin connector only. To be exact, the cable has a 20-pin plug on one end and a 24-pin plug on the other, but if you attach the latter to your mainboard, you’ll have to use the 20-pin plug for the power supply, transferring the problem of connector overload under high currents from the mainboard to the PSU (and this is the very problem the new 24-pin connector has been introduced to solve). The 24-pin connector is necessary: many manufacturers of mainstream PCI Express graphics cards with a peak consumption of 50-60W do not install additional power connectors on their devices, so the mainboard’s power connector has to bear the whole load.
The power cables for hard and optical drives are rather short and may give some trouble to owners of big system cases.
A.C. Ryan Ryanpower2 CableFree ACR-PS2100 (550W)
The cross-load characteristic of this power supply looks as superb as can be expected from a model with independent voltage regulation. On the other hand, the unit only reaches its maximum output power when the +5V and +12V rails are both under max load which is a virtually impossible situation in real life. In other words, if this PSU proves insufficient for a modern computer, it will be due to an insufficient load capacity of its +12V rail rather than due to its low overall wattage.
Well, I never happened to get the full declared output power from this power supply. In order to measure the speed of the fans and to check the PSU’s operability under full load, I was steadily increasing the load from 50W to the allowable maximum, stepping 50-100W. The PSU has to work for 30-40 minutes at each step. The ACR-PS2100 passed the step of 450W successfully, but then burned down at a load of about 510W. It put on an impressive show at that, with a series of plopping sounds and sparkles flying out of the fan grids… The subsequent autopsy revealed that the high-voltage section was all burned out (not the active PFC, but the PWM controller itself, farther along the circuit); the heatsink and surviving components were all sooty.
This is why I couldn’t measure the voltage ripple on the PSU’s output.
A.C. Ryan Ryanpower2 CableFree ACR-PS2100 (550W)
The power supply has two fans, an 80mm fan from an unidentified manufacturer and a 92mm JDDA SDF9225S. Its speeds are varied depending on the temperature in a linear-like manner. The PSU is quiet at low loads, but at high loads the fans become audible, even though not actually loud.
A.C. Ryan Ryanpower2 CableFree ACR-PS2100 (550W)
The efficiency of this power supply is rather low as today’s PSUs go – a mere 74% at the maximum. Of course, this meets the requirements of the standard, but you should be aware that many other PSUs are 80% and more efficient.
Thus, the Ryanpower2 ACR-PS2100 hasn’t any big advantages over its predecessor, the ACR-PS2094 model. The unit couldn’t work under the maximum specified load and it is also not free from the drawbacks of the junior model like too few cables or a paltry selection of connectors (you can’t attach a graphics card power cable; there are no connectors for SATA drives with +3.3V power). Contrary to the boastful epithets in the manual and on the box, this power supply is not better, but inferior to many competing products. The only definite plus of this PSU is the excellent stability of its output voltages.
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