The power supplies in Cooler Master’s VS line are semi-modular. We imagine the company has to leave at least a benchmarkable delta between these units and its top-of-the-line V offerings. Still, we're presented with technical specifications that definitely don't reflect a budget-oriented model. In line with the rest of our field, Cooler Master's V450S is 80 PLUS Gold-certified. It also holds its own in our evaluation of power quality compared to the V-series.
Build-wise, the V450S feels solid. Its chassis is silver/gray and black, and very compact. As we've come to expect from Cooler Master, there's a single +12 V rail (though that's also par for this price and power category, too). According to the company, the V450S' +12 V rail is supposed to be good for up to 36 A, delivering up to 432 W.
Again, the VS line’s cables are semi-modular, which is to say that the motherboard, CPU, and auxiliary graphics card leads are fixed. They’re also round and sleeved. The other cables are modular and flat.
Cooler Master finishes last in our round-up when it comes to the number of connectors to which you have access. There are two PCIe, six SATA, and three Molex plugs. Cable length isn't a strong suit either. The fixed cables are relatively long, but the modular ones are simply shorter than competing units in today's story.
| AC Input | 100-240 V, 50-60 Hz | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DC Output | +3.3 V | +5 V | +12 V (#1) | +12 V (#2) | +12 V (#3) | +12 V (#4) | -12 V | +5 Vsb |
| 20 A | 20 A | 36 A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 0.3 A | 2.5 A | |
| Individual Output | 3.6 W | 12.5 W | ||||||
| Rail Utilization | Sys | Sys | CPU & VGA | |||||
| Combined Output | 100 W | 432 W | ||||||
| Total Continuous Output | 450 W | |||||||
| Peak Output | n/a | |||||||
A look at the V450S' efficiency puts those shorter cables out of mind for a minute. No other power supply in this round-up comes close to its numbers, especially at low loads.
At 100- and 50-percent load, the V450S lands about one-half percent above what's necessary for 80 PLUS Gold certification. At 20 percent, it hits 89.7 percent (instead of the 87 percent required), which is about 2.5 percent better than the assembled competition. Moreover, its lead increases with lower loads. Barely any PSU out there can manage an efficiency of more than 80 percent at a 25 W load.
This takes us to the ripple and noise measurements. Everything looks good there well. We measure very little ripple on all rails, and a smooth curve tells a story of high-quality components.
The V450S' fan runs continuously, but it doesn’t generate as much noise as the Revolution X't's cooler. An acoustic output of 31.1 dB(A) measured at 50 W is very quiet. It doesn’t get much louder at medium loads, either. Cooler Master's V450S produces 31.6 dB(A) at 200 W.
A Look at the PCB
Cooler Master makes decisions similar to what we saw from Enermax. The OEM manufacturer Enhance, which is Cooler Master’s current favorite, built a modern design with an LLC (two inductor, one capacitor) topology and DC-to-DC converters for the smaller voltages. The VS family features a mix of Japanese and Chinese components as well. To that point, the large primary capacitor is made by Panasonic, while the secondary ones are built by Suncon.
There’s also a complete input filter design, and everything appears to be soldered well. Finally, there’s an eye-catching heat sink on the primary side of the PSU that’s rather large for a Gold-certified unit.
Although this power supply is available in Europe where our testing was conducted, Cooler Master doesn't sell it in the U.S. Regardless of how much we like it, only our readers overseas have access to the V450S.










Readers have been begging for you guys to do a proper PSU test for years. I'm glad to know Tom's has taken the time to listen.
/sarcasm
It would have also been nice to see one of Seasonic's TFX units included.
I lol'd at the operational noise graph because it tells you nothing. What rail(s) are they testing? Who knows? Who cares...
You are welcome to continue to defend the article, but the truth is that nobody takes a Tom's Hardware PSU review seriously. This review doesn't do anything to change that perception. Compared to the depth of analysis that goes into other PC components, it is disappointing to see Tom's continue to ignore the requests of its readers to bring a thorough, full-featured PSU review to the table.
Yes, these are supposedly made by top-tier manufacturers, but just because they have a reputation in the past doesn't mean they have a clean slate the entire way through.
"In order to keep prices within reason, we settled on an 80 PLUS Gold rating as sufficient to meet our second demand."
I'm also happy with my 80+ Bronze P/S. Frankly, when you're buying smaller output P/S, I really don't know why anyone would need to get a Gold-rated one.
I paid like 70$ for a top of the line 660W seasonic platinum PSU after MIR. Needless to say I was patient and waited for a good deal, but I see high quality 650-750W PSUs for 80$ after MIRs regularly.
True, PSUs typically operate most effeciently at 80% load. I build gaming rigs though, so 400W is always too small.
I just expected smaller PSUs to be cheaper, that's all.
This review feels like useless. There's no ripple testing, whatever the second comment user says. Get some review from Guru3D and you'll see.
Based on words I can't compare with other products on other reviews, so this is quite a fail.
Haha... well I can beat you on your own games from my cell phone.
I agree. If I am buying a gold rated 450w unit, I am not buying any of these. I will go and get a Capstone 450w for $60.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182066
Haha... well I can beat you on your own games from my cell phone.
Hahahaha yup, given a micro HDMI port. But I'm speaking of a machine capable of challenging the PS4. My old NES 8 bit is going to be revived with the KFA2 750Ti and an i5S processor. Actually I badly wanted the Broadwell architecture but I can't wait 2015...
The three most important things to review on a power supply are regulation, ripple suppression, and hot box stability.
My suggestion for Patrick is to go look at CRMARIS and Oklahoma Wolf's PSU reviews to see how a real review is done.
The only way to verify true quality is with hot box torture. That's how you separate the elite PSUs from the turds wrapped in a box.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139010
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139056
Unless they buy it for the rating and know nothing else about a PSU, but if you checked out the price links to Amazon, no one is that dumb to spend that much on a small wattage PSU. The CM one is sold by some unknown vender with a $44 dollar shipping! Corsair has some reviews, but that's not for the 450w, they're reviews for higher wattage models.