Archives
Contact Us
Contests
Downloads
Forums
Guides
History
Links
Mailing List
News
Reviews

Antec
Cooler Master
Futuremark Corp
Geeks.com
Gigabyte
Kingwin
Mushkin
OCZ
Patriot Memory
Plextor
Raidmax
Sapphire Tech
Seagate
Sigma

Coolmax 350W Fanless Switching Power Supply

     Power Supplies come and go, but have you ever stopped for a second in your overclocking ventures to stop and listen to one? Having witnessed a few zero noise power supplies over a short length of time I can personally tell you that I've still witnessed some noise coming from them no matter how the manufacturer tries to brag how low noise they may be. Well we've come across a few fanless power supplies but nothing to spectacular to write home about. Nevertheless, we'll still give it a shot for CoolMax, whom you've more than likely not heard to much about so far, but rest assured from the looks of their debut 350W PSU, they may have a good thing on their hands.. Lets take a gander at what kind of a power can be had from such a not easily cooled item, but often overlooked noise maker...

Specifications

· High performance components are designed for extra long life and provide maximum system performance
· Heavy duty transformers designed to support high performance system several drives
· Cable-tube on main power cables for better cable routing and neatness
· Aluminum Chassis
· Real No noise Design.
· Compatible with all leading processors including Pentium III, 4 and AMD Athlon XP
· Built in EMI filter, low ripple noise
· Over voltage, Over power and Short circuit protection
· Tube-tide design to tidy the wires
· Designed refer to UL, CSA, TUV regulations. Meet Intel ATX12V/ATX 2.03

Features

     5 Regular 4-pin Molex plugs, a P4 plug, and SATA plug, this 350W has a little something going for it compared to the wonderful and cheap 500+W PSU's I've seen come in $45 cases... The Black anodized finish is a very nice touch to the aluminum chassis that acts like a heatsink...

     As mentioned earlier, the finish of this thing is very nice and would make a very nice PSU if you were to build a small LAN party oriented system. I could picture a x800 pro powered SATA A64 setup in a small Shuttle case.

     The back of the CoolMax PSU is flawless and also idiot proof. I like the LED power button. I can't remember how many times I've turned my own system on only to have no power because the switch got bumped during transport to the local LAN.

     Under medium power the CoolMax delivers very good power for a 350W PSU. Its under max conditions that I have doubts of whether or not it would have the ability to run a system with a 6800GT card. Thank god we have Visiontek ATI cards without those kind of power problems. :)

      I still have mixed feelings about the adapter. OCZ does the same thing on a sleeved PSU. The main problem is how can you possibly sleeve it? The same thing goes for the P4 adapter, but I guess I will just have to deal with it until all PSU manufacturers start doing the same thing.

Conclusion

     I have mixed feelings about the CoolMax PSU. First the negative, it has those stupid adapters, and its only 350W. Why anyone would buy a 350W PSU is kind of a preference I suppose, but for overclockers it can prove to a poor choice, with the exception that it will do just fine for someone that takes interest in mild overclocking or a file server. The one thing that the Coolmax does is provide totally silent and consistent 350W of power to your system which I think overall is what its whole intention is to do. You just can't beat that, and above all its very affordable and looks great. Thumbs up from us to the mild overclockers, but a thumbs down for those of us with a bazillion hard drives, and 6800 video cards...