Hiper Type-R 580W Modular Power Supply

Interior of the Hiper Type-R 580W:

For having so much hype around it, I was expecting a bit more from the internal design. However, its design is, more or less, what you would find in any typical power supply. The capacitors are rated for 105C, which is good (I've seen some PSUs use ones with a rating of only 85C). The heatsinks seem a little undersized compared to other PSUs I've examined, however sizing is somewhat determined by the efficiency and cooling of the power supply (the more efficient the PSU, the less heat generated, the smaller the heatsinks would need to be). There are two main chokes (one group regulation choke with windings for +5V, +12V and usually also -12V, and another choke for +3.3V) which is a pretty typical approach.

Unfortunately I couldn't remove the PCB from the chassis without having to cut some wires so I was unable to verify the 12V rails. However, from the 2nd picture it is pretty obvious that there are indeed two rails. The 2nd rail only has a single wire, which leads to the 4pin +12V connector. I am a *little* hesitant to see only a single 18 Gauge wire run between the PCB and connector (it is a short run though), the reason being is that running potentially up to 18A through that thin wire could cause problems. However, there have not been any reported problems with this PSU so I can't really say this would be a flaw, just a difference in opinion on design choice.

Also worth noting is that this power supply is NVIDIA SLI certified.

How We Test Power Supplies:

In order to thoroughly test a power supply we have built a special rig that is capable of dynamic load levels on each rail. A short article covering our power supply testing methodology in detail can be found here. Please read over the guide if you haven't already, you might just learn a thing or two. Simply plugging a power supply into a regular PC for "testing" is not accurate by any means, nor can any useful numbers be extracted by testing that way.

Also worth reading is our power supply primer article titled, Powering Your PC: Truths and Misconceptions - A Guide To Power Supplies, which covers how power supplies work in great detail.

If you have read the power supply testing article, you know that we publish four (4) groups of numbers for each power supply to give a simplified overall representation that can be compared to other power supplies. Many other load ranges are tested (but not published unless there is a serious problem) to ensure voltage levels remain within ATX12V specifications. I like to refer to it as "working the switchboard" since it involves flipping lots of switches tied to resistors on each rail to achieve various loads. Unfortunately we can't always dial in exact maximum numbers because of the fixed levels of resistance, but load levels we test are often far in excess of any load a regular PC will create.