Techaddicts.net- Mushkin HP-580AP 580 Watt Power Supply Review

Review by: Daniel

Date: January 8, 2007

Provided by: Mushkin, Inc / Brian Flood

Mushkin is fairly new to the power supply market, but are in tune to what PC enthusiasts want from a power supply. Today, we look at the Mushkin HP-580AP 580 Watt Power Supply. This is the 580 Watt Model from Mushkin's 'HP' line of power supplies; and it features a modular power cable design.

Upon opening the box, you will find the manual, two cable ties, 5 screws for the power supply, 5 Velcro straps (which can be used to tie up extra or unneeded modular cabling), and a well shielded power cable.

The power supply features a graphite colored mirror shine finish which looks great, but can attract finger prints very easily. I'd prefer a matte finish on the power supply.

The rear of the power supply features a large exhaust grille and stickers designating that this PSU features Active PFC and Rail Fusion.

Advanced Acoustic and Thermal Design- which helps with cooling the power supply and keeping it quiet at the same time. Inside, there is a rubber washer in-between the fan and the power supply casing, which will help reduce vibration from the fan.

RailFusion-When there is a high enough demand on a single rail, the other rails will 'fuse' together to add more amperage. This is helpful for Multi-GPU systems that require high amperage in order to work properly.

The only time the Rail Fusion light came on was when the PSU was switch off, which is strange.
It has never turned on during testing, which means that the test system did not pull enough power to activate this feature.

Enhanced Power Conditioning- This is basically the Active PFC, combined with the shielded cables and grounding features of this power supply. This can help provide Ultra-low ripple (1%) and superior voltage regulation (1%) under all load levels. The Active PFC gives this power supply an efficiency rating of up to 84%.

Four +12v Rails- which help balance the power distribution. There is a total of four 12v rails in this power supply, each supplying a maximum of 20 Amps.

This power supply features modularization of the power cables. There are eight outlets to plug in the cables on the back of the power supply. The two blue colored outlets are for PCI-Express devices, namely graphics cards. The black outlets are for the Molex, S-ATA, and 4pin floppy connectors.

There is a grounding wire that can attach to one of the motherboard standoffs. Although it is not needed for the PSU to operate properly, it is recommended that you attach it to experience optimal performance. Note that it has a plastic sheath to protect it if is not going to be used.

The following modular cables are included in the package, along with the 24-pin ATX connector / 4 Pin P4/EPS 12v connector (non-modular and attached to the power supply). The two PCI-E connectors feature a metal mesh to reduce EMI. The rest of the connectors feature a plastic mesh to keep things clean inside the computer case.

2x Modular S-ATA connections, for a total of 8 S-ATA power connectors. Perfect for multiple S-ATA Hard Drives, etc.

2x Modular Molex / 4 Pin Floppy Connectors, for a total of two Molex and two 4-pin Floppy Connectors.

The Mushkin 580AP features a single 120mm cooling fan on the bottom. It appears that this fan is thermally controlled via a diode near the PSU's heatsinks.

While testing this power supply, the fan was quiet when the system is idle or doing simple tasks, such as web browsing, word processing, etc. It would slowly turn up to full speed (12v) when games or other CPU and/or GPU intensive tasks were used. The test system I used featured a GeForce 8800GTS, which made the PSU heat up quickly.

When the fan is at medium and high speeds, it begins to make a low pitch whining sound along with a whooshing sound of the airflow that increases in volume as the fan spins faster. After exiting a game, the fan took about 15 minutes to return to its idle speed, a little slow when compared to other power supplies. Overall, the fan was a little too loud for my taste.

* 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 Mushkin 580AP, you can see that everything is neatly arranged. The A-PFC components can be seen at the lower left of the picture, near the AC input. The two upside down PCB's are what appear to be the fan controller logic / rail fusion logic. The three black heatsinks are of a high quality and will dissipate heat nicely.

The fan is a Globe Fan rated at 0.38A. The top of the fan features a logo marked "Silent Engine".

Installation was very simple and the meshed cabling really made the inside of the case neater.

This power supply will be tested against a Fortron Source Blue Storm AX-500A 500W Power Supply.

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

The results are great, as it maintains the voltages that are within spec while running a CPU intensive application; the rails were solid during testing. During testing, the fan cranked up to its maximum speed, which is fairly loud; my expectation was that the fan would only go to its medium-high speeds. It took about 15 minutes for it to reach the normal low speeds after testing was complete. The comparison power supply, (Fortron AX-500A) took about 5 minutes to return to idle speeds.

Overall, this power supply is a great value. It offers many features that only much more expensive power supplies offer, such as Modular Cabling, Active PFC, and four 12v Rails. The only thing that was disappointing about this power supply was the fan. It could have been more quiet, especially when compared to other power supplies in its class. I would recommend Mushkin to choose a quieter fan model for its future power supplies. If the fan were quieter, this power supply would be near perfect. The HP-580AP is being offered for about $140 in the internet shops.

Techaddicts.net would like to give this power supply an 8.5 out of 10 rating. A recommended power supply!