PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool 475W ATX w/PFC

Company: PC Power and Cooling
Product: Turbo-Cool 475 ATX
Street Price: $200 USD
Date Reviewed: October 15, 2002
Reviewed By: Joey C. aka Chong345

Specifications:

Testing The Power Supply:

My testing method will be to use a FLUKE Multimeter to take actual voltages from the back of the power supply's 20-pin motherboard connector. This will show what the rails truly are as opposed to software since software is not always accurate and there are too many variables that influence software readings. I ran 2 tests. One at idle which I let my computer idle in windows for 15 minutes and measured the highest and lowest readouts from both the digital multimeter and Motherboard Monitor 5. Then I ran Folding@Home for 15 minutes to simulate full load and measured the highest and lowest voltages for 15 minutes.

Results:

At idle the digital multimeter showed a reading of 5.13V for the +5V line and 12.13V for the +12V line. These voltages never moved for the 15 minutes that I monitored. Looking at MBM5 the software showed the lines being lower, especially the +12V. This means that the motherboard is in some way not distributing the power correctly and is no indication of how well the PSU is actually functioning since the "true" voltage directly off of the motherboard connector is showing 5.12V and 12.13V. Well with all this said there was still no fluctuation AT ALL on the 5V line or the 12V line. They stayed constantly the same on MBM5 and the reading that I was taking with the digital multimeter. This is a good thing as it shows that the power supply is supplying "clean power". This means that there is little variation in the flow of the power as opposed to fluctuating or "dirty power". Dirty power can lead to instabilities when running your system, as well as damaging parts since the voltages are always fluctuating. So we can conclude that after this first test the power supply is performing flawlessly.

For the full load test the voltages still remained the same. There was a little bit of fluctuation showing in motherboard monitor. The voltages would go down by .03V and back up to 4.92V over and over. The +12V stayed exactly the same the whole time. Then looking at the multimeter, the voltages didn't move at all from what they were at idle. They stayed at exactly 5.13V an 12.13V. I trust the multimeter more than the software for reasons that I stated earlier.

Idle:

Load:

What does this mean for the overclocker? Well, you will be able to take out the power supply bottleneck that you might currently have since the rails don't fluctuate. Secondly you have the option of tweaking the rails if needed, if you run into a situation like mine where the motherboard isn't quite doing a great job of distributing power.

After all this testing I thought back to the one fan that was exhausting the air and cooling the unit. I thought for sure that the unit had to be very warm. I was surprised to touch the unit and it was not warm anywhere, it stayed fairly cool considering my case temperatures at the time. So that one fan did do a good job, it isn't exactly the most quiet fan in the world, but it's definitely not loud.

Conclusions:

Well, what can I say except that the PC Power and Cooling 475W unit is the best power supply that I have ever used. To put it simply the unit is rock solid and the 5V and 12V lines are dead on. The power was clean and the lines never fluctuate from idle to full load AT ALL. So in conclusion I would have to say that I would highly recommend this product to anyone who wants good, clean power and an overall great power supply. The price is a little steep at $200 dollars, which is almost double the price of power supplies at the same rating, but the unit gets the job done and is constructed very well. I have never seen any power supply that did not weaken a little bit under full load. This is pretty amazing so yes I think the $200 is worth the investment.

Pros:
  Very Stable Voltages and Power
  Adjustable Potentiometers

Cons:
  $200

I would like to thank PC Power and Cooling for sending a unit for us to review. You can check out there site at www.PCPowerAndCooling.com. They also sell heat sinks, fans, cases and other accessories.

Back To The Main Page