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- Date:
- Tuesday , May 15, 2007
- Author:
- Paul Johnson
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Koolance 1200w Liquid Cooled PSU
Liquid cooling your power supply? Koolance goes high tech with high power in what is a very innovative product. We give you an exclusive look at world's first truly submerged liquid cooled power supply at 1.2 kilowatts.
Overview
The first thing we are going to look at with the Koolance 1200w is its packaging, accessories, and documentation. While normally none of these items is a real make or break item for a power supply the packaging quite often contains a lot of information about the product we are purchasing. The inclusion of an owner’s manual that provides actual information about our product is also of great help. Accessories are almost unnecessary with a power supply as the unit is self contained, unless it is modular, but there cases where a manufacturer can include useful accessories to make installation, routing and use more efficient.
The first thing that became apparent from the Koolance’s massive packaging was this power supply was big, and heavy. The shipping weight of the unit tips the scales at over 20lbs!
Unlike the power supplies we have seen to date the Koolance's exterior packaging is almost devoid of information regarding the power supply and is the basic corrugated cardboard seen in just about every brown shipping box. This lack of information is not a deal breaker as we were able to find the vast majority of the information we typically find on the packaging on the Koolance website and in the user manual (zip file)but if the unit was on a retail shelf it would be rather mysterious.
From the literature available online and in the user manual we find that the Koolance 1200w is advertised as being at least 80% efficient and SLI Ready. The unit's documentation does not specify any requirements around how Koolance determines the efficiency and as we have seen in our previous reviews companies vary from 115v to 230v input in their ratings for efficiency. Also, a quick check of the SLIZone website now finds the Koolance 1200w certified for 8800Ultra (a new category since our last review). This is a new development, as when we began testing this had not occurred yet, and as such none of our product literature denotes this certification. Also of interest is the very little difference in power draw that we have seen with the current games and 8800Ultra in relation to 8800GTX as Brent described in his recent 8800Ultra review. Why this results in a new level of SLI certification therefore is a bit bewildering. Finally the warranty on the Koolance 1200w is stated as being 2 years as is seen on Koolance's webpage and in the user manual. This warranty is on the shorter end of what we have seen offered and for the price of the unit is disappointing, though a longer warranty would not guarantee a quality product.
When looking at the above information it looks like Koolance is right on target with this unit in aiming for the high end user. The power supply comes equipped with 6 SATA connectors good for SATA raid arrays, and an additional 12 Molex connectors for all manner of peripherals. In addition the unit comes with 4 of the older 6 pin PCI-Express connectors as we would expect from a unit that has been certified for 8800Ultra SLI. On the power label we also find this trend of targeting the high end user continues as the unit offers 85A on the combined 12v rails, which is also 85% of its output capacity. This is the second highest 12v DC output we have seen to date; only being surpassed by the Thermaltake Toughpower 1200w another product from the same OEM, CWT.
Once we open the packaging we find the power supply with radiator attached, right angle power cord, manual, and mounting screw/stand offs. Our initial unit shipped with a 16AWG power cord but we have been informed by Koolance (and we saw in a second unit) that the 16AWG is being replaced by a 14AWG cable. This 14AWG cord is required to provide full power to the unit, however during our testing I swapped in the included 14AWG, the included 16AWG, and my own 14AWG cable and had no problem getting a full load run on the 16AWG included cable.
The included user manual is good and fills in most of the blanks that were previously left blank by the packaging. The manual weighs in at 9 pages and the installation portion is the most complete seen to date. This facet is necessitated by the units unique nature. The manual revision we have is the v1.02 and so some of the information contained there in is undergoing revision in reference to mounting directions of the unit and will be discussed in our testing section. While the manual documents the user interface, cable count, and power specifications for each rail it fails to indicate which 12v rails run to which connector on the modular interface as the recent Thermaltake Toughpower did or how the 12v rails are divided up. Adding a label of this sort to the modular interface or documenting this in the user manual would cost little and would aid in clarifying the units setup so users don’t overload one 12v rail as the 12v rail configuration is not easily determined and complex as seen above.