Techaddicts.net- Cooler Master iGreen 600W Power Supply Review

Review by: Daniel

Date: January 29, 2007

Provided by: Cooler Master Inc. / Yolanda Wan

The Cooler Master iGreen series of power supplies offer up a host of environmentally friendly features, such as a High Efficiency, RoHS compliancy, and is 80%+ Efficiency certified. With 80+ efficiency, this power supply may save you money on your electric bill. It also is officially SLI certified and supports Crossfire as well. Today, we look at the 600 Watt version of this power supply. The iGreen also features Active PFC, and a 'Super Silent' 120mm fan to cool down the internal components.

This power supply comes with a simple manual in many languages, four screws, and a power cable.

This power supply features a shiny graphite mirror housing, with a large 'Cooler Master' emblem on top of the silver fan grille. The glossy mirror coating allows for finger prints to appear easily, and it ruins the appearance if it is displayed in a case that has a window. A matte coat of paint would be nice.

On the side of the power supply, there is the Cooler Master logo and iGreen model designation. There are three +12v rails on this power supply. They list the Peak amperage first, before the actual continuous amperage. The +12v1 rail can have a peak of 19.5 Amps, but a continuous 16 Amps can be supplied; the +12v2 rail has a peak of 19.5 and a continuous amperage of 14 Amps; and lastly the +12v3 supplies a peak of 19 Amps and a continuous of 8 Amps.

The rear (exterior) features small circular perforations to let the warm/hot exhaust. There is the standard on/off switch and power input. Interestingly, there is small red LED on the rear too, above the power switch. This lets you know if there is a problem with the power supply, such as a power overload, under voltage, or a temperature that is too hot for it to operate. During testing, it has never lit up, which is good. This power supply supports the full range of input voltages, so no switch is needed.

The cables are wrapped in a black mesh to provide better airflow within the case; unfortunately, it is not modular. Modularization of the cables would have been an excellent addition to this series of power supply.

The ATX 24-pin power connector features a detached 4-pin cable to make it backwards compatible with 20- pin motherboard connectors. A potential problem with this 4-pin cable is that it doesn't have a clip to hook it on the main ATX cable nor to the motherboard connection; this 4-pin cable can fall out and cause serious system errors due to a loose connection or loss of supplementary power.

5x Molex power connectors, with grips for easy removal from devices and 1x Floppy power connectors.

There is a single 120mm fan on the bottom of the power supply. During testing, this power supply fan was somewhat noisy at idle speeds despite the quiet 17dBa claim; although regular system noise tends to drown it out. With the system doing CPU / GPU intensive work, the fan sped up to medium and high speeds. With a medium speed, the fan is noticeable over the system noise, but not annoying. At high speeds, it is loud and annoying, with a low pitch whine. The exhaust flow was strong and felt warm.

* Taking this power supply apart will void the warranty, as noted by a small sticker on top of a screw needed to fully open the power supply up.

Inside, the Active PFC system can be seen on the bottom left. The silver heat sinks are adequate for cooling down the various voltage rectifiers. There is one large primary capacitor and smaller one beside it.

The 120mm fan inside is a Cooler Master branded fan and takes a maximum of 0.47 Amps; but it appears to have a model number of a 'Super Red' fan. Super Red branded fans seem to have noisy attributes; this may be why this particular fan is noisy at low and high speeds. *According to earlier reviews from other hardware review sites of this power supply, Cooler Master previously used a Protechnic Electric MGA12012HB-025 which may have been quieter.

Voltages are at Max Load, running 3DMark06 CPU Test 1 / Deep Freeze HDR test, and read with a Multi-Meter.

The power supply performs as expected, and the voltages are in spec. During testing, all the tests ran fine; the power supply fan went to full speed about five minutes into the tests. It took about 7 minutes for it to cool down and reach the idle fan speed.

Overall, this power supply is great for system builders / upgraders looking for a power supply capable of supplying adequate power to SLI and Crossfire based systems. The ' 'Cooler Master' logo on top of the silver fan grill looks great inside of a case with a side panel window. A few things hold back this power supply though. The lack of Modular cabling means putting extra effort in maneuvering the power cables around to produce a neat environment inside the case, and the slightly noisy fan will scare away system builders who want a quiet / near silent system.

Techaddicts.net would like to give this power supply an 8 out of 10 rating, a great power supply.