Tom's Hardware > All Reviews > Components > Power Supplies > 5 Power Supplies Get the Full Juice Treatment

5 Power Supplies Get the Full Juice Treatment

7:07 AM - February 7, 2006 by Daniel Schuhmann

1. Post Stress Test PSUs
2. Test Candidates In Detail
3. CoolerMaster Real Power RS-550-ACLY, Continued
4. Performance
5. Enermax Liberty ELT500AWT
6. Enermax Liberty ELT500AWT, Continued
7. Performance
8. Hiper Type R 580W
9. Hiper Type R, Continued

Our live stress tests last year served to weed out which PSUs were good for the electronic waste dump and which units merited a closer look. The drop-out rate of 32% also demonstrated that the underlying quality of power supplies isn't as great as many vendors would like us to believe.

The manufacturers of the drop out units went back to the drawing board to make improvements, and sent us new models for consideration. You can read here about how the final version of the CoolerMaster Real Power 550 and the new Hiper Type R fared in our tests, along with information about some new models from other vendors as well.

How We Test Power Supplies

You can read about our test procedures and get the details on our heavy load test platform. Because so many devices dropped out of the running only after a few hours of stress testing, we've also expanded our test portfolio to some extent. In addition to our standard tests, every device must also survive a 12-hour endurance test under maximum load to remain worthy of consideration.