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Kingwin Absolute Power 600w PSU All the power lines are sleeved in a black mesh with shrink wrap at the connector points. This sleeving makes a world of difference in giving off that 'neat and tidy' look. Check out the connectors. These are the now very popular EZ-Grip connectors. The EZ-Grips allow the end user to get a better hold and avoid rocking a connector until the cows come home to get a tight fit loose from a device. Definitely one of those things that once you try you will never go back.
Here's a breakdown of the each power line and what's on it. The mainboard power connectors are not modular unlike the Molex, PCI-E and SATA lines. One disappointing thing was that the lone PCI-E rail had two connectors. High end VGA cards running in SLI are very power hungry and require each VGA card be on a separate rail. Too bad Kingwin didn't have two PCI-E rails rather than the one line with two connectors on it.
Fire that puppy up Stanley At present, I don't have a windowed case here in the shop to show off the Kingwin's lighted triple windows under power, hence the out of the case views below. The intensity of the lighting was strong but not overpowering. Check out the Kingwin logo panel, very classy looking.
Performance To look at the performance of the Kingwin Absolute Power 600w unit, we put it under load for a couple of days; looking for any variations in its power delivery. Below is a screen shot of SiSoft Sandra 2005 Pro's Burn In module showing readings after one of the many six hour runs we put it through. Test Bed
Power delivery was solid and stable. The CPU voltage showed a bit more fluctuation that I like but this is the same basic deviation that we have seen on a couple of other power supplies hooked up to this particular mainboard. While I have faith in our onboard sensors, I did go behind it with a Multimeter and found that each rail showed no significant deviation and was well within spec when checked manually. Conclusion Kingwin scores a near absolute perfect score with their Absolute Power unit. 600 watts should be more than enough for even the most hardcore user. Coupling this Star Trek level of power with the neatness only sleeved modular lines can give, really makes for a nice addition to any case. Let's not forget the lighting effects of the two blue LED fans through the three tinted windows of the Kingwin PSU, it's EZ-Grip connectors, silent operation, a $120 price tag. The list just goes on and on. The only issue left was the two PCI-E connectors on one rail thing. Now this is easily enough corrected by hooking the PCI-E rail up to one VGA card (if you're running SLI of course) and using a PCI-E 6-pin adapter on one of the Molex rails for a second VGA card. This was more of an annoyance than a true con because the Kingwin Absolute Power unit has it as close to the perfect power supply as I've seen. At $120 with all the features we have shown you and an easily corrected annoyance for the SLI folks, I think you would be VERY hard pressed to find a more feature rich power supply in the 600 watt range that would be a better value. Pros
Cons
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pages Copyright © 2000 - 2008 by R. Dean Barker.
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