Introduction
Industry heavyweights have been banging a particular drum of late. That drum's beat spells out performance-per-watt, and the likes of Intel, AMD, ATI, and NVIDIA are all too keen to show the technology press just how much performance their latest SKUs deliver per watt.The performance-per-watt metric has been rising, so it's all good, right? Not necessarily, because whilst the pure performance envelope is constantly being pushed, associated wattage is also going up, especially in the graphics-card market. Add in other power-hungry components and you, the reader, can appreciate why high-end PSUs have gone from being, say, 400W a few years' ago to, now, seeing kilowatt models from respected manufacturers.
Cooler Master, perhaps better known for chassis, has branched out into the world of PSUs and has a reasonably comprehensive catalogue. However, with a certain graphics card company launching its uber DX10 'sell your granny and buy one' SKU soon, and the possibility of running a couple in SLI, a new breed of PSU is required. Enter the Cooler Master Real Power Pro 850W. Read on to see why you may need one if contemplating the ultimate gaming rig.
