Cooler Master Real Power Pro 1000

Cooler Master’s first 1kW power supply is the successor to the Real Power Pro 850 that we have previously reviewed. Does this more powerful unit live up the expectations built by its predecessor?

Category: Power Supply
Manufacturer: Cooler Master
Product: Real Power Pro 1000
Gallery: Click Here
Price: $349.99

There are two sides to every story. What one person thinks is right, another will think otherwise. It is a fact of life that we deal with everyday in argument and discussion. The hardware world is the setting for a lot of these conversations; what someone considers progression, another might consider regression. When the term Moore’s Law was first uttered in 1965, then coined in 1970, it became a driving force behind progression in the computing realm.

“The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year … Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase. Over the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncertain, although there is no reason to believe it will not remain nearly constant for at least 10 years. That means by 1975, the number of components per integrated circuit for minimum cost will be 65,000. I believe that such a large circuit can be built on a single wafer.”

For those who are unfamiliar with the message relayed in the above quote, Moore’s Law simply states that the optimum transistor count for processor die (this is a generalization for the purposes of our discussion) will double every two years for the foreseeable future. Over the years, Moore’s Law has developed beyond the context of transistor counts and has almost become a basis for technological growth in general. However if we take a look to see how it has held up over the past 36 years, since Intel released the world’s first microprocessor in the 4004, it is pretty clear that Moore’s prophecy has become self-fulfilling. Intel adopted Moore’s Law as a goal, and as a result has been able to keep it true. The Intel 4004 was built on a circuit of 2,250 transistors. If we multiply 2,250 by 2^18 (doubling every 2 years over 36 years), we end up with 589,824,000 – or 590 million transistors. Intel’s Kentsfield processor, released last year, has 582 million transistors. By the end of this year, Intel’s Penryn processors will most assuredly have surpassed the 590 million mark.

This increase in transistor count yields a tremendous increase in computing power. Processors are operating at higher frequencies than ever before and they are consuming more power than ever before. The vehicle for increasing the amount of transistors you can fit on a die is the manufacturing process used to create the die. When the transistor density increases on a processor die, the power density is also increases. This typically allows for increased efficiency. However, when engineers design new processors to be built on a smaller manufacturing process, they have a few choices to make. Will they opt for lower power consumption, due to the decreased feature sizes on the chip, or will they chose to add functionality (and thereby size) to the chip and utilize the extra transistors that are afforded due to the smaller manufacturing process. History tells us that far more often than not, engineers go for the second option. This, combined with steady frequency increases over the past five or so years, has led to processors consuming more and more power. AMD’s current most powerful Quad FX platform consumes around 500 Watts under full load. Intel’s Kentsfield consumes well over 300 Watts when overclocked and under load.

Using nothing more than my own personal foresight, I have to say that the processor market is starting to head in the wrong direction. Not only are CPU’s using more power, video cards and cooling solutions are too. The result is a complete computer that is capable of consuming more than 1000 Watts of power. 1000 Watts is probably enough to power every lightbulb in your home. Those readers hailing from areas of infamous energy shortages, such as Southern California, will know that turning on and off lightbulbs in your home over the summer can save quite a lot of money. Now imagine that effect being negated because you have a super powerful computer running some CS 1.6 all day. The problems of cost and energy conservation are not what I base my opinion on, however. Perhaps the biggest problem we are facing with computers today is that basically none of the technologies that go into your computer are independent from one another. Without a capable motherboard, your super fast new RAM will not be able to run at its rated speed. Without a capable processor, that video card you just bought with your entire paycheck won’t be able to deliver quite as advertised. And let’s not forget the biggest dependence of them all: Every component in your system would not be able to do anything AT ALL if the power supply was insufficient. Power supply technology, while currently able to keep the pace, could very possibly become overwhelmed in the near future. Trying to produce a power supply to the ATX standard that can produce upwards of 1kW is like trying to shove an elephant into a Volkswagen bug. There are only so many components that can be shrunk in a power supply to reduce size. Transformers, inducers, heatsinks, and fans are constantly increasing in size with increased power output. More efficient MOSFETS might get us a few hundred more Watts, but that performance wall is fast approaching. Standards will have to be rewritten, products will have to be scrapped, and countless millions will need to be poured into R&D to develop new power supplies that can handle the beastly computers that we will see in the next few years, assuming current trends continue.
{mospagebreak heading=Introduction&title=Features and Specifications}

What are we going to do about this potential problem? Well, it all comes back to the two choices that engineers make when deciding on their new processor designs: lower power consumption or increased functionality. We will probably have to look to mobile chips for inspiration, much like Intel did when designing the ICM, but instead of taking that design and exploiting it in a way that negates the decreased power consumption by adding more and more features, engineers will have to make the decisions they seem to have been avoiding for the past 15 years.

With that rant complete, the subject of today’s review is none other than one of those 1kW power supplies I just mentioned. Cooler Master’s Real Power Pro 850 greatly impressed us when we reviewed it back in mid-December of last year. Their latest model, the Real Power Pro 1000, seems to be little more than a more powerful version of the 850. Let’s see if lives up to the precedent.

Features and Specifications
In our review of the Real Power Pro 850, we went over the whole “World’s First 6 +12V Rails” claim. Our conclusion was that not only did the RPP850 have 6 +12V rails, it had 6 “real” +12V rails. This meant that there were dedicated taps on the transformers for each +12V rail, rather than 3 taps that were then split. Due to the relatively small size of the RPP850, and RPP1000 for that matter, this seemed to be quite a feat. We expected the RPP1000 to have virtually identical guts to the RPP850, but we opened it up anyway to make sure.

We were surprised to see that the inside of the RPP1000 has quite a few differences from the internals of its predecessor. While the transformer configuration seems to be the same, there are several physical differences clearly evident. Among these are the shape of the main heatsink, the number of heatsinks, and slightly different positioning of electrical components. There are, however, still 6 “real” +12V rails, so that much remains the same. The RPP1000 also maintains the single 135mm fan that is becoming increasingly common amongst high-output power supplies.

Externally the RPP1000 is identical to the RPP850, with the exception of the labels. The unit itself sports a mirror-like finish that reflects ambient case light for a nice effect. The color of the unit, gunmetal, vibes very well with the colors commonly found on most case designs today. The cable configuration is identical to that of the RPP850, with a 20+4-pin motherboard connector, 8-pin +12V CPU connector (EPS12V compliant), 4-pin +12V CPU connector, 8 SATA connectors, 6 4-pin peripheral (MOLEX) connectors, 2 auxiliary power connectors (floppy drives, old video cards), and 4 6-pin PCI-E connectors. Unfortunately one of our big gripes with the RPP850 has not been addressed with the RPP1000 as the unit also lacks an on/off switch, meaning that the technician must unplug the unit before working on the computer.

{mospagebreak title=Package, Test Setup}

Package
Cooler Master’s packaging is typically well done, and the RPP series power supplies are no exception. Not only do they keep the unit safe during transport, they are also tremendously convenient for the storage of other power supplies while the RPP is in use. Inside the cleanly designed package is the unit itself, a manual, mounting screws, a case badge, and last but certainly not least: a bottle opener. Why Cooler Master decided to toss in a bottle opener with the RPP1000 is beyond us, but they can rest assured that it will be getting plenty of use. After opening and closing the box repeatedly over the course of testing, we found the packaging to be quite durable.

Testbed and Methods
Test Setup

Case: Thermaltake Armor
Power Supply: Enermax Galaxy 1000 | Cooler Master Real Power Pro 1000
Motherboard: ASUS L1N64-SLI WS
Processor: (2x) AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 (Quad FX)
Hard Drive: (2x) Western Digital WD1500ADFD 10,000RPM, RAID-0
Video: (2x) XFX NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX XXX Version
Memory: 4096MB (2×1024MB) Corsair XMS2 PC2 6400
Optical Drive: Lite-ON SHW160P6S05
Cooling: (2x) Vigor Monsoon II

Software Configuration

Motherboard BIOS: L1N64-SLI WS Release BIOS 0124
Operating System: Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
Video Driver: NVIDIA ForceWare Version 97.92 (January 10 release)

We pulled out all the stops for this one. Of all the testbeds we have used to test power supplies with in the past, none had anywhere near the power sucking ability needed to truly test the Real Power Pro 1000. That said, we decided to take a whole new approach and custom build the most powerful rig we could muster. This Quad FX, SLI system uses components that have been shown to consume pretty much the most power possible. We also threw in some Vigor Monsoon II TEC coolers for an extra 120W consumption.

In the past we have overclocked the test system to squeeze even more juice from the power supply being tested. However, the Quad FX platform used in this particular test system does not overclock with any kind of ease or significance. For that reason, we will not be testing the Real Power Pro 1000 on an overclocked system – not that it would have mattered, as you will read a little later.

Measurements were recorded with a digital multimeter and voltage levels were recorded over a 2 minute period for each value when possible. Power consumption readings were taken using a Kill-A-Watt Electric Usage Monitor from P3 International that was plugged into the power mains.
{mospagebreak title=Tests}

Tests
We will be testing the Real Power Pro 1000 against a power supply that we have no previously reviewed in the Enermax Galaxy 1000. We would have liked to review the Galaxy 1000, and we certainly hope and plan to in the very near future, but our time with the unit was extremely limited on this date. We also initially planned to test the RPP1000 against the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 EPS12V, but we ended up choosing not to, for reasons we will get into in just a second.

Since the Enermax Galaxy 1000 was already installed in the system, we started there. The Galaxy 1000 is a modular power supply, and as such the +12V rails are somewhat ambiguous. We tested what we believe to be 4 different +12V rails on the Enermax Galaxy 1000, based off of the modular plug labels and locations

As you can see, the Enermax Galaxy 1000 performed very well, dipping below the nominal voltages only once during testing. While the measurements could be considered “high”, they are not higher than the values we have recorded for any other power supply we have tested in the past. Furthermore, the fluctuations we observed in between different testing scenarios were minimal. Also note that the total power consumption of this system was 961 Watts under full load. Had we overclocked the system by about 10%, these power supplies would probably have had a difficult time keeping up. We weren’t really interested in frying thousands of dollars worth of hardware, so we opted not to overclock in the end. We plan to one day be able to load power supplies beyond their rated capacity to see if, when, and how they fail, but for now our budget prohibits such activity.

Cooler Master Real Power Pro 1000

We swapped out the Galaxy for the RPP1000 in a little under 5 minutes, most of which was spent removing the Galaxy. The RPP1000 is very easy to install because it is quite small in spite of its tremendous rated output. In comparison, the incumbent Galaxy is a much longer unit. There are also plenty of cables for even the most advanced system. Before actually getting the test underway, we traced all of the +12V leads from the PSU’s PCB to the end of each cable. By doing this we were able to identify all of the different +12V rails, which allowed us to test each individual rail. It turns out the division of these rails is pretty logical; one rail shoots straight to the motherboard, another goes to the EPS12V connection on the motherboard, one supplements the MOLEX connectors, two of them provide juice for the PCI-E connectors, and the last is kind of split between SATA and MOLEX connections. At least, that’s what we gathered by tracing a bunch of tiny yellow wires through a bunch of other tiny yellow wires and red wires and orange wires and black wires…

As you can see, the measured voltages appear to be a bit higher than what we would have preferred. However, they are still within accepted range. You can also see that the different +12V rails had slightly different realized voltages, but that the fluctuations were essentially the same. Rail fluctuation under different operating scenarios is the main thing we look at when evaluating a power supply as opposed to the accuracy of each individual rail. Based on this, it is fair to say that the Real Power Pro performs exceptionally, as the maximum fluctuation we observed was a mere 3 hundredths of a volt. In contrast the maximum fluctuation we observed on the Galaxy 1000 was 5 hundredths, slightly more than the RPP1000 but still rather good.
{mospagebreak title=Final Thoughts and Conclusions}

Final Thoughts and Conclusions
Regardless of how well this power supply performs, it is still pushing 1000 of power into your system. Its pretty safe to say that your system at home does not come anywhere near the 1kW power consumption levels needed to stress this unit. The amount of people with 8800GTX SLI systems is pretty small, and the amount of people that have 8800GTX SLI systems based on AMD’s Quad FX platform is smaller still. Those that belong in that tiny demographic of users are the only ones who should really consider purchasing a power supply with a sustained output in excess of 1000W. In our experience, 850W power supplies produce more than enough power for pretty much any system out there, so 1000W would be pretty excessive. The 150W difference does not seem too drastic, but that brings us to another point, price.

There are currently 12 power supplies listed on newegg.com that have a sustained output of 1kW or more. The average price of said power supplies is about $360. There are also currently 12 power supplies listed on newegg.com that have a sustained output somewhere in the range of 800W to 900W. Of those power supplies, the average cost is $243. Here we have an increase in price of about $120 for a mere 100-200W output increase. What this means is that you are paying a premium for power supplies with ultra-high output. As we stated before, the demographic that should really be considering these units is quite small in the big scheme of things. However, we must evaluate the price of the Real Power Pro 1000 from Cooler Master based on the price of its direct competition. We have word that the RPP1000 is expected to have an MSRP of $349.99, which is well within the expected price range of a power supply of this magnitude. The Enermax Galaxy 1000 that was also used for testing in this review goes for $339.99. While the Galaxy certainly outperformed the Real Power Pro in our tests in terms of the accuracy of the voltage rails, the performance of the two power supplies are essentially equal. We can say this because the performances were more than adequate considering our test system had no stability problems whatsoever and none of the measured values were outside of the acceptable specifications. With this in mind we would say the value of the two power supplies in question is basically identical. The decision between the two needs to be finally evaluated on specific features. The Galaxy 1000 from Enermax is a modular power supply, while the Cooler Master Real Power Pro 1000 is not. Chances are favorable that whoever is using one of these powersupplies will have an SLI DX10 level system. There will be massive amounts of cabling in such a case, and because of this a modular design is probably superior in this instance. However, the Real Power Pro offers 2 additional +12V rails, a quieter design, and a smaller form factor - all of which are very important things to consider when purchasing a power supply.

Pros
+ Not excessively large
+ Nice mirror finish
+ Single fan design, quiet
+ High efficiency
+ Six true +12V rails
+ Reasonably priced
+ Sleeved cables
Cons
- Rails not as accurate as competition
- Expensive (in relation to less powerful units)
- Lacks an on/off switch
Rating
8.3 out of 10