Gamertell

Product: WattSmart 850W EPS12V 2.91 Power Supply
Price: $204.99 (retail)
Rating: 9/10
Pros: Easy to install, dual cooling fans, many long and well-protected cables and promises to be more environmentally friendly by using less power.
Cons: A little pricey and the dual fans can cause a little extra case vibration. Long and thicker cables might be hard for large-handed modders with small cases to handle.
Overall: A good buy for an environmentally-conscious gamer building a rig who also needs a couple hundred extra watts.

If you go to the store and look at power supplies on a shelf, there’s really not much to compare. Out of the boxes, your eye might be drawn toward a shiny case or something that glows.

For someone piecing together a serious gaming rig, however, the key features are watts, cables, cooling and noise. The WattSmart 850 watt Power Supply (model no. EPSPOW850PRO) might fit the bill, especially if you need to power those extra hard drives, CD drives and graphics cards.

As part of the StarTech’s WattSmart line, it promises to be a more energy efficient power supply, appealing to gamers who might be trying to think a little more green while tossing countless cans of Bawls behind the couch. Here’s a look at the 850 watt WattSmart power supply.

Design – Out of the box the power supply looks like a nicer than standard power box. It is colored dark grey with a bundle of cords popping through the back covered in black mesh shields.

The core unit measures 5 7/8 in. wide, 3 3/8 in. tall and 7 1/2 in long. The bottom plate has an extra 9/16 extension on the back (the cable side) for additional mounting screw slots.

Each of the unit’s 11 cables are wrapped in woven nylon mesh that easily bends with the cables with minimal crimping. The mesh is sealed at each plug with molded rubber.

The cables are:

• 1 2-cable combo (a split 24/20 pin ATX Moterhboard cable) 4 measuring approximately 19 1/2 in. long from power supply case to plug tip
• 4 6-pin PCI Express power connector cables measuring approximately 18 1/2 to 19 in. long
• 1 4-pin cable approximately 19 3/4 in. long
• 1 8-in EPS power connector cable that is 19 1/2 in long
• 2 fold out cables with 4 (SP4 Female) plugs, one at each bend and one (ATX P4 Power Female 4-pin) plug at the end
• 2 fold out cables with 3 (LP4 Female) plugs,  one at each bend and at the end

It also ships with a 6-foot black power cable. The power supply with the 11 cables weights approximate 6 1/2 pounds (about 5 pounds without cables). I’m not quite ballsy enough to rip open a power supply, so if you want to see the guts, check out this review at [H]Enthusiast.

Features – The side that faces the back of the computer case has a black power on/off button and a 3 1/4 in. ball bearing fan. The side facing into the PC has another 3 1/4 in.  fan (for in-out air flow to maximize cooling) and the tighly packed mass of power cables coming protruding from a hole.

The power supply is SLI Ready certified, which means it will work with higher end chipsets and is meets the 80Plus certification requirements, which mean it runs at 80% - or better - efficiency at 20%, 50% and 100% loads.

It also have built-in OCP (Over Current Protection), Over Voltage Protection, Over Power Protection and Short Circuit Protection.

Performance – It’s a power supply, so without some high-tech meters and measurements, all I can say about power performance is that it turned on and stayed on without blowing a house fuse. The specs provided by StarTech indicate is runs at 40 degrees C at 90% load and 50 degrees C at 80% load with a peak output of 930 watts.

As for noise, the dual ball bearing fans do create a little extra noise and slight case vibration, so be prepared to pack in some rubber below the core unit to minimize case noise.

As for installation, it fit nicely into an older Compaq PC case, and required the faceplate and some bottom padding for the newer, larger mid-form Ultra m998 ATX case. The long cables were a bit tricky to work with in the smaller case mostly because there wasn’t much room to begin with. Stuffing them into the case without nicking the motherboard might become an issue for those who have too many thumbs on each hand.

In case your case will not fit the default screw holes, you may need to get an extender faceplate. The Ultra case came with a plate that extended the fan/switch side to 6 11/16 wide (but kept the same hight) so it would fit in the mid-form case.

In Ultra case, I had no problems with the cables. The lengths were great for getting to drives and devices, even in the mid-form case, and the shielding looked great with the transparent side.

Overall – Since it claims to have a “high efficiency design [that] saves power and memory,” this should be a grat buy for anyone piecing together a gaming rig that requires a bit more juice than the 450 watt power supplies. I’m not sure exactly how much memory is saved with a power supply, but I can appreciate the ecological effort.

My one small complaint is that StarTech didn’t include plastic caps for any of the unused plugs. If you simply don’t need every cable, you’ll need to tape the ends before you tuck them away, otherwise the ends could catch on a screw end or, worse, catch on a random circuit on the motherboard. Sure, I’m a little paranoid, but leaving any type of exposed power cable with juice running through it close to my precious computer parts makes me nervous.

In case you don’t need all 850 watts, there are three models for WattSmart line: the 650W (model EPSPOW650PRO for $164.99), 750W (EPSPOW750PRO $189.99) and the 850W (EPSPOW850PRO $204.99)

Product Page [StarTech] Read [Enthusiast] Also Read [Albotas]