Posted:2006-04-12 By hardware psu review Number of View:11117
COOLERMASTER REALPOWER
RS-550-ACLY (550W) -COOLERMASTER
REALPOWER REVIEW
By :hardware psu review
Posted:2006-04-12
xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source
CoolerMaster RealPower RS-550-ACLY (550W)
I can’t but draw a parallel here. Almost one year ago we published a review
in which a 450W power supply model from CoolerMaster was tested second after an
A.C.Ryan Ryanpower2 ACR-PS2094 – the junior brother of the above-described
ACR-PS2100! So, once again we’ve got RealPower and Ryanpower2 power supplies in
the same review, but they have grown 100 watts more powerful now. This extra
wattage doesn’t help the Ryanpower2 much as you’ve just seen. What about the
RealPower?
CoolerMaster RealPower RS-550-ACLY (550W)
The power supply is in a steel case, painted a lusterless black color. It is
cooled with a single 120mm fan and lacks a 110/230V switch – just like the
Ryanpower2, but for another reason. The RS-550-ACLY features an active PFC
device that supports a full range of input AC voltages from 90 to 265V.
The real manufacturer of this PSU is AcBel Polytech Inc., which is indicated
by the UL certificate number on the label: E131875.
CoolerMaster RealPower RS-550-ACLY (550W)
The PSU doesn’t have detachable cables and there is no protective plastic ring
where they go out of the case, just a hole with a rolled-in edge. Some users
have reported their concern that the cable insulation may wear off against the
edge of the case with time, that’s why I mention this at all. Personally I do
not think the cables can be damaged under normal use and don’t see any big
difference between a plastic ring and a rolled-in edge of the case.
CoolerMaster RealPower RS-550-ACLY (550W)
The unit is analogous to its 450W predecessor on the inside, with active PFC (a
Fairchild ML4800CP chip is employed which combines PFC and main regulator
controllers; it is the chip with the blue paper label in the snapshot) and group
voltage regulation. So, this is quite a regular power supply as they are today.
A curious thing is that the PFC choke is wound on an E-type rather than on a
toroidal core (in the bottom left corner of the first snapshot). A non-typical
thing too is the ferrite ring with a brown-wire loop inside that you can see in
the top left corner of the snapshot. This is a current transformer the power
consumption indicator, which is to be installed in the front panel of your
system case, is attached to.
CoolerMaster RealPower RS-550-ACLY (550W)
Don’t be misled by those two tall high-voltage capacitors into thinking that the
RS-550ACLY is a classic-design unit with two capacitors connected in series.
Both the capacitors are for 450V voltage (the operating voltage on the active
PFC’s output is about 400W irrespective of the input voltage) and are connected
in parallel, yielding a combined capacitance of 2*150=300µF.
You receive a power consumption indicator along with the power supply. It is
inserted into a 3.5” bay of your system case. The box with the indicator
contains a micro-ammeter and a blue highlighting LED; it works only with this
particular power supply. Owners of light-colored system cases can replace the
indicator’s faceplate with a silvery one, which is also included. The showings
aren’t very accurate since the indicator has a rude scale and is also not a very
high-precision measuring instrument, either. So, it should be rather viewed as
decoration. I must acknowledge, however, that the indicator did report the power
consumption of the PSU correctly at loads of about 300W. It would yield
exaggerated numbers at higher loads and understated ones at lower loads.
CoolerMaster cunningly declares peak currents far above typical currents for the
three 12V lines. What’s the hitch? Like with any other ATX12V 2.0 power supply,
you should rather look at the combined power of the 12V power rail. It is 360W
here, so the combined current in all the three 12V lines cannot be higher than
30A whether it is a peak or not.
As I have written in my other reviews, power supplies with multiple +12V
outputs have in fact only one +12V power rail inside which is split in several
lines to comply with the requirements of a safety standard. The standard demands
that the current in each line was not higher than 20A (the manufacturers even
safeguard themselves setting the limit at 18A). Thus, none of the individual
lines can be said to have any peak current at all since any current below 18A is
normal for it, any current over 18A triggers the protection. They can put the
limit of 18A on all the +12V output lines and the power supply will still be
compliant with the standard. It wouldn’t require any work on the developer’s
part: the PSU’s internals remain the same, and only the protection-triggering
thresholds are changed. And the power supply wouldn’t become more powerful for
that, as you see.
Thus, a peak current can only be specified for the common +12V rail, which is
inside the PSU before it is divided into the separate outputs. But it is for
this rail that there is no peak load specified here.
For the same very reason, there is no technical meaning in the words of PSU
manufacturers about extra stability, extra wattage, and any other extras that
multiple +12V lines bring about. You’d better just filter out this white noise
you hear from the marketing departments. Stability, wattage and other
characteristics all come from the “basic” +12V power rail and do not depend at
all on how many lines this rail is split into on the PSU’s output. In other
words, a PSU with a single 12V/36A line is not any worse than a PSU with two
12V/18A lines.
The RealPower RS-550-ACLY has the following cables and connectors:
Mainboard cable with a 24-pin non-separable connector (an adapter for a
20-pin connector is included); it is 49cm long
CPU cable with an 8-pin connector; 50cm
CPU cable with a 4-pin connector; 51cm
Two graphics card cables with 6-pin connectors; 50cm
Cable with three Molex connectors and one floppy mini-plug on each; 49cm to
the first plug and then 15cm more to each next plug
Cable with three Molex connectors; 49cm+15cm+15cm
Cable with three SATA connectors; 49cm+15cm+15cm
Cable for the power consumption indicator; 60cm
There’s nothing I could cavil at. The PSU offers all connectors necessary for
a modern computer, even a separate 8-pin CPU connector and as many as two power
connectors for graphics cards, for SLI or CrossFire configurations. Of course,
the SATA power connectors have a +3.3V voltage unlike the deficient connectors
of the above-described Ryanpower2. I only think that perhaps it would be simpler
for the user to have splittable CPU and mainboard connectors (one 4+4 connector
instead of the two 4- and 8-pin ones and one 20+4 connector instead of the
24-pin one plus the adapter).
Lacking independent voltage regulation, the PSU still yields very stable
voltages. The output voltages remain within acceptable limits almost acrossthe entire diagram. But like with the Ryanpower2, the maximum output power
can only be achieved here if all the rails are fully loaded, which is virtually
impossible in a real computer, as opposed to our specialized testbed.
The load being 525W, the output ripple was 23, 54 and 14 millivolts on the +5V,
+12V and +3.3V rail, respectively. There is almost no low-frequency pulsation
(at the double mains frequency or 100Hz in our case).
The RS-550ACLY uses a blue-highlighted CoolerMaster A12025-25BB-2AN-PI fan
(which, however, bears its native marking “Protechnic Electric MGA12012HB-O25”).
The graph I got is an exact copy of the one you will find in the user manual.
The fan speed remains constant at about 1200rpm under loads of below 200W. At
higher loads the speed grows up linearly until it reaches 2400rpm.
The graph is shaped in the same way as the fan speed graph of the RS-450-ACLY
model, but is shifted upwards by 400rpm (the speed was varied within a range of
800-2000rpm in the RS-450-ACLY), so the new model is noisier than its
predecessor under the same load. Still the noise characteristics of the new PSU
are acceptable; I guess you will be satisfied with it, if you do not seek for
absolute silence. If you do, consider other models, perhaps even the mentioned
junior model from CoolerMaster
The unit boasts good efficiency (over 80% on average and 84% at the maximum)
and power factors.
My impressions about the RealPower RS-550-ACLY are generally on the positive
side. This is not an exceptional product and, despite its high total output
power, corresponds rather to 400-450W models from other manufacturers in its
effective load capacity, i.e. considering the way the load is distributed along
the different power rails in a modern computer. But it has good electrical
characteristics (excellent stability of output voltages; low level of
pulsations; high efficiency) and high quality of manufacture. The CoolerMaster
RS-550-ACLY is going to be a good choice for many users, except for those who
value silence above everything else. Its noise characteristics are rather
average and it is a little louder than the junior model from the same
manufacturer (but otherwise the RS-550-ACLY has done better than the RS-450-ACLY
in my tests).
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