When developing the V-Series power supplies Cooler Master had one thing in mind. They wanted their name to be what you thought of when you were looking to buy a new power supply or upgrade your current one. The V-Series design is based on a brand new platform that makes use of Japanese capacitors, most of them solid capacitors, as well as a high quality 42 mm transformer. This means the power supply will have outstanding efficiency and stability. Today we are taking a look at the V850 which features a single 12V rail, an 80PLUS Gold certification, a silent 135mm fan and an all modular design. Read on as we take a look…
Special thanks to Cooler Master for providing us with the V850 850W Power Supply to review.
Specifications
Packaging
The V850 comes in a very nice retail box. On the front there is a photo and it lets us know some of the main features. On the back it gives us more information and lists the number of connectors, which is always good to know before you go buy a power supply.
The side of the box has the specifications on it. Inside you will find everything nicely packaged. Getting it all out you have the V850 Power Supply, a bag of modular cables, power cable, a bag of mounting screws and a user’s guide.
For a full unboxing and overview of the V850 be sure to check out our video below.
Cooler Master V850 Overview
The V850 unit has a pretty sleek design to it. It is not overly flashy, but does have some style to it. The one thing you will notice about this unit is that it is 100% modular so no cables are connected to the unit at all.
On the top of the unit is a large sticker with the input and output numbers on it. It also lets us know that the unit is 80PLUS Gold certified. This means that it will be 90% efficient at 50% load and 87% efficient at 100% load. The bottom of the unit houses the 135 mm cooling fan. It is covered by a honeycomb mesh. This is one of Cooler Master’s FDB fans, which are said to be very quiet.
The side of the unit has the V850 logo on it. It is on both sides so if you do have a side panel window that shows your power supply everyone will be able to see that you are rocking the V850. The back of the unit has a mesh design to help with airflow. Like most power supplies you will find the power connection and power button back here.
The front of the unit is where you will find all of your modular connections. They are labeled, which will help you if you don’t know where to plug in your cables. Talking about the modular cables they are made up of the following: Motherboard 20+4pin x1, CPU 4+4pin x1, PCI-Express 6+2pin x6, SATA x9, Molex x4, and floppy x1.
Installation & Testing
Installing the V850 is very easy. With this being a fully modular power supply it is easy to install it and only use the cables that you need.
We will be testing the Tachyon 750W in our Intel X79 system, which is comprised of the following components.
Processor: Intel Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition
Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 Pro
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680
Memory: 16GB Kingston 10th Anniversary
Power: Cooler Master V850
Storage: 750GB SATA Drive
Cooling: Noctua NH-U12S
Case: Cooler Master Cosmos II with 5 fans
We will be using OCCT to test this power supply. Initial spot check on the 3.3V, 5V and 12V rails were 3.31V, 5.04V and 12.19V respectively. We will be running OCCT’s power supply test for 1 hour to stress test the power supply. Below are the results.
3.3V
5V
12V
Some very impressive results here. For the most part the 12V and 3.3V rails were solid throughout the test. The 12V rails actually stayed the same when full load was put on the system! The 5V rail did show the most “ripple” For those interested the voltage regulation on the 3.3V and 5V rails were 0.60% and 0.79% respectively. Good to see the 12V rail perform so well and the other rails under 1% deviation.
Final Thoughts
I’ve always been a fan of Cooler Master power supplies. It was Cooler Master’s Real Power Pro series that really made me go, “Wow!” when I first opened the box up. While Cooler Master has really expanded their product line since then one of their strongest products are still power supplies. With companies like Corsair and be quiet! emerging with quality power supplies many people may have forgot about Cooler Master, but the V-Series is here to change that.
When it comes to any type of electrical device the most important part is the components and Cooler Master has gone with some really quality parts inside of the V-Series. You have all Japanese capacitors, most of which are solid capacitors, then you have a high quality 42 mm transformer. This gives you the great performance that we saw in our tests. I have not seen a power supply be 100% solid on the 12V rail in a while! All of the rails were under 1% voltage regulation during our tests, which is very impressive. It is good to see a company concentrate on quality components rather than gimmicks or extras to sell their units.
On top of the great voltage regulation this power supply is 80PLUS Gold certified. That means you will see 90% efficiency at 50% load and 87% efficiency at 100% load. This power supply is design with a single powerful 12V rail and as you saw from our test that rail performed the best. The 135 mm fan was very quiet, even during our load testing. Cooler Master also made this unit 100% modular, that means you only use the cables that you need, which leads to less cable mess in your system.
The V-Series is made up of the 700W, 850W and 1000W units. The 850W unit is currently selling at my favorite online retailer for $169.99. Given the performance that is a good price! Cooler Master is also backing all of the V-Series power supplies with 5 year warranties. Overall ThinkComputers gives the Cooler Master V850 850W Modular Power Supply a 10 out of 10 score and our Editor’s Choice Award!
Pros:
– Quality components
– SOLID 12V rail
– Under 1% voltage regulation on all of the rails
– 100% modular
– 5 year warranty
– 80PLUS Gold certified
Cons:
– None that I found