Six rails and Quad PCIe
The mirror-like finish gives the Real Power Pro 850W a high-quality feel. It should do, for the supply will retail at around the £175 mark.
Click on the above picture for a larger version and you'll see the flexibility offered by Cooler Master. The overall continuous-load wattage is 850W, which is par for the course with respect to very high-end PSUs. However, the Cooler Master Real Power Pro has six individual 12V rails for powering wattage-eating components such as high-end graphics cards and CPUs. Most decent PSUs may offer 2, some may specify 4, but seeing 6 is extremely rare, and it should offer the informed reader the proposed usage of this kind of power supply.
The large 135mm fan is temperature controlled and, according to the specifications and blatantly ignoring key variables such as ambient temperature, should spin at around 800RPM with 300W load and no more than 1250RPM at full load, that is, 850W.
Unlike some of the recent competition which we took a look at in our 600-700W round-up, Cooler Master RPP 850W doesn't feature modular cabling. Rather, there's a total of 11 non-removable cable runs that take in Quad PCIe connectors, a couple of runs with 3 regular Molex connectors and a floppy-style connector. On top of that is generous outfitting of SATA connectors and a split EATX connector (always a good thing). 4-pin and 8-pin CPU connectors are provided too.
Here are the connections in all their braided glory. They're serpents, I tell thee!
What's interesting when looking at the picture and referring back to the spec. chart on the previous page, is the provision of 4 6-pin PCI connectors. Quad PCIe being the preferred term.
NVIDIA's highest-performing next-generation SKU will require a couple of 6-pin PCIe connectors per board. Add a couple of boards for some SLI loving and you'll need, well, 4 6-pin connectors, just as we have here. Cooler Master's obviously invited to the G80 party.
In terms of pure specification, then, the Cooler Master Real Power Pro is one of only a handful of supplies that provides Quad PCIe connectors as standard. OK, you could simply attach the appropriate adapters and turn the Molex connectors into PCIe, but here's native support. Further, and linked in the with connectors, the provision of 6 individual 12V rails allows dedicated load per line, without tripping the system or colouring the supply rail with power sucked by some other component. Our concern is with loading all of the lines near their limits, which would push the PSU's wattage capability to around the 1.5kW mark. Cooler Master would no doubt state that loading all 6 lines, to their limit and concurrently, isn't a real-world scenario. Hmm.
Cooler Master also asserts an impressive >85% efficiency over a typical load and ultra-silent fan that spins that can barely be heard (if it's ultra-silent, why should it be heard? - Ed). We note that no mention is made over a wide-load spectrum. The PSU is backed up by a limited 3-year warranty and will be available to buy on G80 launch day. We'll leave it up to you to guess when that is.
Summary
Our initial look highlights that the Cooler Master Real Power Pro 850W PSU has, barring modular cabling and a power switch, all the right features for a very high-end PSU. There's power in spades that's intelligently split over a number of 12V lines, offering a single rail for key power-hungry components. Quad PCIe connectors are a futureproof measure and the graphics card that requires them isn't too far off.We're going to be hooking it up to a couple of as-yet unannounced graphics cards and will report back on just how well it performs. If the performance matches up with the features this may well become the must-have luxury PSU for the enthusiast. Watch this space.
If you can't wait, you can pre-order the PSU from Scan by clicking here.
