GlacialPower GP-AL650A 650 Watt Power Supply

GlacialPower is a fairly new name in the power supply arena.  I've heard of them through their Igloo series of CPU coolers via the GlacialTech brand.  They assure me that their power supplies offer a great value to customers who purchase them.  Previously we took a look at the GP-PS550BP, a 550 Watt Power Supply offered by GlacialTech/GlacialPower, which was somewhat lackluster, offering a plain grey case and a lack of physical connectors.  Today, we are looking at the GP-AL650A, a 650 Watt Power Supply with an 80 Plus Certification which appears to be much better.     

Upon opening the box, you will find the manual and the power supply.  The screws and the power cord were missing.  Perhaps because this is a review version.

Here are some of the main features and specifications from the box:

The Power Supply:

The power supply features a matte black housing.

GlacialPower's Logo is imprinted into the casing

Looking at the side of the power supply, there is an GlacialPower label with their logo on it, the model number and a condensed specification list.  Note that there are two +12v rails, with +12v1 supplying up to 25A and +12v2 supplying up to 20A, which is good for peripherals requiring more power. It is also RoHS compliant. 

There is an large grill on the back which allows the 120mm fan to exhaust hot air, an on/off switch and AC Power Input.  This power supply does feature Active PFC, so there is no switch to select the input voltage.

This power supply features the following cables:

-A 24-pin ATX power connector with removable 4 pin for backwards 20-pin compatibility.

-A 4/8 pin CPU +12v Power Connector

-2x  6 + 2 Pin PCI-Express Power Connectors

-6x Molex Power Connectors with a grip to allow easy removal from devices

-6x Serial ATA Power Connectors

-1x Floppy Power Connector

Cooling:

There is a 120mm fan on the bottom of this power supply.  During testing, at idle load, this fan is completely silent (not spinning at all), which is great for anyone looking to build a quiet system.  With loads, the fan constantly made quiet whirring sounds, but it was not loud enough to be really noticeable or annoying.  When the computer is shut off, the fan will remain on for a few minutes to cool down the internal components, which may help in prolonging the life of the power supply.

Inside the Power Supply:

* Taking this power supply apart will void the warranty.

Inside the power supply, there are two sparsely finned heat sinks that offer fins to cool down the voltage rectifiers.  There are also two transformers, one large and one one smaller transformer in the middle.  Interestingly, the two transformers have the "CWT" lettering on them, meaning that either this whole power supply is made by Channel Well Technology or just the transformers are. The primary capacitor is 'JunFu' branded.

The PCB of the power supply has GlacialPower's logo on it.

The fan inside is a high quality and quiet ADDA fan, with the model number AD1212UB-A71GL with a draw of .50Amps.

Testing:

For this power supply, the test system consists of the following:

-Antec Nine Hundred Case

-Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 Dual Core Processor @ 3.4 GHz

-ZeroTherm BTF90 Heatsink

-eVGA nForce 680i SLi Motherboard

-2GB (1GB x 2) of Mushkin XP2-8500 DDRII-1066 Memory

-320GB x 4 Western Digital 16MB Cache Hard Drives

-2x nVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS (G92) Video Cards @ 715MHz Core / 1000 MHz Memory

-Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital Sound Card

-Sony 16x DVD-RAM / 18x Samsung DVD-RAM Drives

-4x 120MM fans, 1x 200mm fan

-2x CCFL Lights

(Multimeter Results)

*For additional / larger pictures of the GlacialPower 650 Watt, Click Here

*Voltages are at 'Max Load', running 3DMark06 CPU Test 1 and 2 / Deep Freeze HDR test, and read with a Multi-Meter.

The results are great for this power supply. Everything ran fine during testing, the system was stable and performed the tests as expected.  During the tests, the fan speed varied from completely off to a medium speed, almost like the GP-550BP that we previously reviewed. When the system is idle or doing simple tasks, the fan is nearly or completely silent.  I was very satisfied with the noise characteristics during the testing. Installation of this power supply was not too great because the screws were missing from the package, but went well otherwise.  Overall, the GlacialPower GP-AL650A 650 Watt offers a great value and good performance.  The intelligent fan controller keeps this power supply silent when doing non system intensive tasks and fairly quiet when under load, which was the main feature that impressed me.  I would like to see more PSU manufacturers using this temperature controlled feature. This power supply would be great for anyone wanting a quiet computer or building a HTPC. Availability in the U.S. is quite low though, when it is available, it will cost $145 MSRP.

Pros +

-Great power output

-Silent / Quiet 120mm Fan

Cons -

-High end users may want more power than 650 Watts

-Not all cables are sleeved.

-No screws were included (possibly because this is a review unit)

-No power cable included (possibly because this is a review unit)

Techaddicts.net would like to give this power supply a 8.5 out of 10 rating.

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