|
Out of the box experience...
The packaging is
about the norm for a power supply. The power supply itself is in a
bubble wrap sleeve and the extras are in plastic bags.
The power supply comes with everything you
would expect. It has screws, zip ties, power cable and an owners
manual.
 The power supply housing
is in line with pretty much every power supply you see these days. The
housing is well ventilated with a quiet 120mm cooling fan. Spire
takes it a little further and adds some bling with Nickel plating.
Cabling is pretty basic with the Spire, but
that is just fine with me. I'm tired of getting 20 connectors that
I just have to try to hide anyway. There is still plenty of
connectors. Along with the 24-pin power connector and 4+4
auxiliary power connectors, you get 6 molex, 2 SATA, 2 PCI-E and a
floppy drive connector.
Testing
For this review we'll be using a gigabyte
GA-965P-DS3 motherboard which is based on Intel's 965X chipset. The CPU
is overclocked to 3.2GHz using a 400MHz FSB and voltage of 1.325.
Here is a basic rundown of the test system:
|
Hardware |
Model |
|
Motherboard: |
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 |
|
CPU |
Intel C2D E6400 |
|
Video Card |
eVGA 7900 GTO |
|
Storage |
Seagate 400GB SATA |
|
Optical |
Lite-On 16X DVD+/-RW with
Lightscribe |
|
Memory |
OCZ 2GB Kit
PC2-8000 Platinum
4-4-4-12 |
|
Cooling |
Corsair Nautilus 500 Water
cooling kit |
I will be using a volt
meter and taking the readings directly from the power supply.
I'm not too fond of monitoring programs as they can vary from
program to program. I monitored the voltages at idle and load
and here are the results.
|
Rail |
Idle |
Load |
| +12v |
12.14v |
12.10v |
| +5v |
5.18v |
5.19v |
| 3.3V |
3.426v |
3.422v |
Conclusion
When it comes to power supplies bigger is not always better.
There aren't too many systems out there that need a 1000watt power
supply. For a typical system, 600watts is going to be more
than enough power. Quality is key with a power supply.
The better components that are used will deliver better power to
your machine. For $87 you are getting a quality power supply
that has a 3-year warranty and is practically silent. This is
a really good power supply and Cluboverclocker recommends it.
|
 |
|
Innovation: |
8.5 out of 10 |
|
Performance: |
9.0 out of 10 |
|
Quality: |
9.5 out of 10 |
|
Stability: |
9.0
out of 10 |
|
Overclocking: |
N/A |
|
Software/Drivers
Pack: |
N/A |
|
Value: |
9.5 out of 10 |
|
Overall Rating 9.0 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
Project Skill
Level
(10 being most difficult) |
4
out of 10 |
|
