Sunbeam Nuuo 550w Power Supply SLI

The LCD Unit

The LCD unit is a 3.5" front panel insert.  A 3.5" LCD is infinitely more preferable to a 5.25" one as you may need the larger optical drive bay for something else.  The controls on the unit are straight forward; a chrome colored rheo is on the right allowing the end user to manually turn the rear 80mm fan's speed from low to high or it can be clicked to the far right which is the auto setting.  Surprisingly, the auto setting was much quieter operation than the low speed manual setting.  Centered is the LCD display which we'll look at more closely in just a second.  The last point is the small button to the left of the LCD which changes the display from Celsius to Fahrenheit.

     

Under power, the LCD remains simple in its display.  A large wheel graphic 'spins' showing motion next to the displayed PSU internal temperature.  The graphics under the temperature display move across the bottom in relation to the fan's speed.  Turn the rheo up and the speed picks up, turn it down and the speed of the underlying graph slows.

Performance

In order to test the Sunbeam's Nuuo power delivery we looked at things from two standpoints, raw power within specs and power consistency.  Each line was checked with a multimeter and found to be within spec.  To check for consistency and power delivery over time we ran SiSoft Sandra 2005 Pro's Burn In module in a loop of 999 runs, effectively six hours.  A screen shot was then taken showing the high, low and average power during our six hour 100% load run.  To keep the power pulling, we also dropped four 120mm case fans in our test bed along with a very power hungry GeForce 7800 GTX.  Here's our test bed details.

Test Bed

• AMD Athlon 64 3000+

• Albatron K8SLI mainboard

• Kingwin AquaStar H2O Cooler

• Albatron GeForce 7800 GTX

• (2) 512 mb DIMM of Corsair XMS4400 DDR

• Maxtor 80gb SATA HDD

• Generic DVD-RW drive

• Windows XP Pro with all service packs installed

• (4) additional 120mm case fans

Results

Conclusion

Performance wise, the Sunbeam Nuuo does exactly as it is supposed to.  Clean, consistent power delivery.  After confirming the Nuuo's power, it's value really boils down to features and price to either make or break Sunbeam's high wattage PSU.  Feature wise, you have everything you could wish for and all this for a street price of less than $80.  Rather than name everything off again, just look at the list of pros.

We only found one negative issue with the Sunbeam Nuuo, that being its length.  Installing the Nuuo 550w unit in our Lian Li PC-65 Plus, it butted up against the case's top mounted 120mm case fan.  Most cases don't have a top blow hole this big but the last thing you want is to have all the parts to build your ultimate LAN box and discover your PSU won't fit.  For the bulk of you, this won't matter but it is something to be aware of all the same.  If not for this one thing we would have had no problem awarding the Sunbeam Nuuo with our Editor's Choice award.  For standard cases, this PSU should be one of your top two picks.  An upgrade you will most certainly be pleased with.

Pros:

• Modular cables make cable routing a breeze

• Easy grip connectors

• Braided lines

• One of the PCI-E and one Molex EMI shielded line

• Smart fan

• Ability to power a third fan of your choosing and have its power governed by the 120's speed

• 3.5" LCD panel with rheostat

• Variety of different length lines

• Excellent feature to dollar ratio

Cons:

• A tad long

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