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Cougar CMX 700 Power Supply Testing

The Cougar brand represents power supplies from the renowned HEC / Compucase company, the largest OEM supplier. When creating Cougar blocks, the manufacturer uses his own schemes and developments. How successful German engineers are in their subject area, we have to find out using the example of the Cougar CMX 700 model.

Acquaintance

Realizing perfectly well that the masses judge at the beginning by the cover, the manufacturer did not enclose the array of circuits and capacitors in a dull gray case. Before us is a power supply unit in a bright, stylish metal casing. Orange piping, intricately perforated mesh on the outside, rounded shapes. There are more associations with a sports car than with computer components. The cables are wrapped in a black mesh braid. Additionally, we note the presence of ferrite elements. They are located at the ends of the cables in order to eliminate high frequency interference in the electrical circuit. It should be noted right away that the build quality is good, as well as the fact that the Cougar CMX 700 is quite compact: its dimensions do not go beyond the typical form factor, it will easily fit into a Middle-Tower case. The presented power supply provides a number of non-removable cables: a 24-pin line, as well as processor power cables plus two PCI-Express cables (one 6-pin, the other 8-pin). For other loops there are connectors on the back of the panel. MOLEX, Floppy cables can be connected to specially marked black connectors. Two "red" channels are for PCI-E cables. In addition to the necessary cables, the Cougar MCX 700 package contains a device passport, a Velcro strap, screws for fastening and a sticker with the manufacturer's logo.

Technical part

The packaging indicates that the unit complies with the 80 PLUS Bronze energy efficiency standard. In fact, we are talking about the second of the six existing levels of efficiency requirements. Not the lowest, but far from the highest. At 20% of the load, the unit must demonstrate an efficiency of at least 81%, at 50% of the load, the efficiency is at the level of 85%, and at the maximum, 100% load, the unit must operate with an indicator of 81% or more. To what extent the block matches its "nameplate", we will check later. In the meantime, we'll arm ourselves with a screwdriver and examine the contents of the block itself.

The layout is quite tight, but there is nothing to reproach the manufacturer with, the soldering is very neat, as is the quality of the elements themselves used in the general scheme of the device. The manufacturer installed solid Japanese condensers; for passive cooling, a pair of L-shaped radiators with a comb-like structure are used. In addition, a Power Logic fan with a noise level of 33 dB and a rotation speed of up to 1500 rpm operates in the PSU. The blower has special grooves on the blades. Initially, it was believed that this is a decorative element, but we are talking about a patented design, which allows, according to the manufacturer, to provide an optimal level of cooling and correctly concentrate the air flow. It should be noted that the fan uses a hydrodynamic bearing in its design. Inside the bearing housing there are special grooves filled with grease, a thin layer of which separates the fan axle from the hub. This does not affect the noise and speed of operation, but it increases the service life of the supercharger to approximately 300 thousand hours. The original active cooling design itself is referred to by the manufacturer as Vortex Fan Technology. In general, we did not have any complaints about the equipment scheme. Let's move on to testing.

Testing methodology

Choosing a power supply is not an easy task, but it is the most important one. It is not so easy to identify a sufficiently high-quality characteristic in a domestic environment. And this requires a special approach.Traditionally, the user, as a measure of quality assessment, must choose the power declared in the data sheet, according to his taste, design and everything else. However, close attention must be paid to completely different parameters. It is very important to carry out not only an external examination, but also to measure the efficiency, and the power efficiency at individual loads, and on the basis of the measurements obtained, to make your own conclusion. Moreover, the manufacturer has already shown compliance with the 80 PLUS Bronze energy saving standard. To carry out the tests, we will use a specialized Formoza PowerCheck load installation. Its main feature is as follows, it is capable of delivering a load on a block with a special "rhythm". In its original form, the installation functioned for conducting tests on units up to 250 W. Constant changes and a kind of modernity made it possible to achieve considerable results. Now we can work with devices with a power of up to 2 kW. The load unit is connected via the LTP port and is under the control of a specialized software program. We measured at 140W (20%), 280W (40%), 420W (60%), 560W (80%) and 700W (100%). With the help of an external temperature sensor, we were able to measure the internal temperature of the case to record overheating, if there really was one.

Test results

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