Cooler Master G500 Power Supply Review
Technical data …
The basic weight of the CM G500 is approx. 1.56 kg (shipping weight approx. 1.88 kg) and the overall size is about 150x140x86 mm.
The technical data of the 500 Watt power supply can be checked at any time on the attached label. The Coolermaster G500 RS-500-ACAA-B1 provides following voltage levels and amperages: +3.3V 20A, +5V 20A, +12V 38A, -12V 0.3A and +5VSB 2.5A
All voltages could be tested on different loads also with external measurements very well and pointed to a good technical conversion of the switched power supply. The combined total output values should not exceed the following ratings: At +3.3V and +5.0V up to 120 Watt, at +12V up to 456 Watt and total consumption of all power lines should not exceed 500 Watt (according to the manufacturer).
These are manufacturer values, which one should not exceed, to avoid overloading and too high heat development. Apropos overloading – of course the PSU offers also all kinds of short-circuit-, overcurrent-, output- and input power protection, (SCP, OVP, OPP, OCP, OTP) which was tested successfully in the test attempt. Nevertheless one should avoid any installation failures, because under certain conditions it is possible to destroy the PSU, or other parts of the PC (up to a fire by e.g. cable fire with loose or wrong connections).
Furthermore, the power supply has an energy efficiency active PFC (Power Factor Correction) for reduction of the reactive power, the EMV noise and improvement of the efficiency. Meanwhile at least the more inexpensive but less efficient and bigger passive PFC (upstream throttle) is legally prescribed. So also in this point the company Cooler Master saved by no means and offers a power pack with 80PLUS Bronce certification, which has the .90 PFC value.
Own measurements of the test system with ASRock 890GX Extreme3 motherboard, AMD Phenom II 710 X3 CPU, 4GB DDR3-1333 memory, hard disk and ATI Radeon HD4870 PCI-E 2.0 video card resulted in an idle value of 134 Watt and a maximum value with full system load of 238 Watt. Switched off in the S5 mode, the test system with the CM G power supply needed max. 1.7-5 Watt. Above all the idle value of 134 W with small load is thereby a little bit lower than the value of previously tested Cooler Master Silent Pro M500 power supply of approx. 140 Watt with lower 500W total power and much higher than the very energy efficiency Cooler Master Silent Pro Hybrid 1050W power supply with an consumption in idle of approx. 122 Watt in spite of the very high 1050W total power. So this is a good result for the inexpensive G500 power supply unit. More power supply reviews will be published here in the hardware test area.
You can calculate the PC current consumption and PC cost of electricity easily …
Interactive power consumption calculator
The MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) of the power supply is according to the manufacturer with 40°C about 100,000 hours, which distinguishes finally the reliability of the power supply, this time between 2 possible errors is very high.
The relative small 120mm fan reached thanks to temperature control a good adjustment of the volume for necessary cooling and the fan is also silent with medium PSU load. Unfortunately not only high-quality 105°C capacitors are inside of this power supply used, but also some 85°C capacitors like these Bulk-Caps are used, which would be replaced with 105°C caps in Cooler Masters upper class.
Layout, Design and Features of the Cooler Master G 500 Watt power supply unit …