Conclusion - Kingwin ABT-1220MA1S Mach 1 Power Supply

Date:: Tuesday , August 19, 2008
Category:: PSU / Power Supplies
Manufacturers:: KWI Technology Inc.
Author:: Paul Johnson
Editor:: Kyle Bennett

Kingwin ABT-1220MA1S Mach 1 Power Supply

Kingwin has come to us with its power supplies before, and while that 800w unit did OK, it was not exactly anything we would consider an award winner. Today we have another Kingwin weighing in at a huge ~1200 watts. Can you say "Torture Test at 45C and 960 watts?” Fire extinguisher. Check! Let's get it on.

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Conclusions

The Kingwin Mach 1 ABT-1220MA1S is the second power supply from Kingwin we have reviewed to date. The previous unit we reviewed as the more moderate 800w ABT-800MA1S which fell into a slightly lower, yet still highly competitive, market segment from the ABT-1220MA1S. However, both market segments are full of power supplies from more well known brands with exceptional performance such as PC Power and Cooling, Silverstone, Corsair, and others. The last Kingwin unit proved acceptable in its market segment but was not award worthy when compared to its competition. So the question today becomes can the ABT-1220MA1S provide a unique mix of external features combined with impressive load testing results and DC output capabilities route the established elite in this bracket unlike its predecessor the ABT-800MA1S?

HardOCP’s testing methodology is intended to very much push power supplies to their advertised wattage rating in temperatures that will represent some of the hottest computer enthusiast cases. So if a unit passes all our testing it is definitely not something to take lightly. In fact we expect more power supplies to fail our testing than make it through unscathed.

Build Quality

The Kingwin ABT-1220MA1S features excellent build quality that maintained all of the good points of the previously reviewed Kingwin while improving on all of the bad. The exterior of the unit is still exceptionally well constructed and includes the coax style modular cables which provide excellent connections with their screw down design (and a unique look that some users will certainly appreciate). The interior of ABT-1220MA1S sports a totally new design compared to the ABT-800MA1S that has APFC and a new layout featuring a single transformer and primary capacitor in the center of the unit. In addition to this layout and topology change SuperFlower/Kingwin has abandoned the questionable capacitors previously found on the primary of the ABT-800MA1S (and its SuperFlower predecessor Plug-N) in favor of one provided by Nippon Chemi-con. The secondary continues to be stocked with CEC Holdings International capacitors. Overall the build quality is excellent this time around for the Mach 1 and all of the shortcomings of the previous Mach 1 have been addressed in this much more elegant design.

Load Testing

The results of our load testing for the Kingwin ABT-1220MA1S were very good in all of our metrics at 120v and 100v input. The ABT-1220MA1S exhibited very good voltage regulation that ranged from a peak 12v change of 0.16v to a low value of 0.01 depending on the 12v rail viewed while the 5v and 3.3v rails also showed excellent voltage regulation. This is very good over a 1200w capacity especially when we consider the 12v rails showed this regulation over a spread of 90A. At the same time the unit exhibited efficiency values that ranged from 82.62% to 85.92% at 120v and 82.05% to 85.43% at 100v. Like the voltage regulation this result is absolutely excellent especially when we consider that this unit is a 1200w power supply. At the same time the unit showed good exhaust temperatures peaking at just 59c at 120v, 62c at 100v, and 63c during the Torture Test (our ambient test temperature is 45c).

DC Output Quality

The DC Output Quality of the Kingwin ABT-1220MA1S was excellent during testing. Over the first two tests the 5v and 3.3v rails ripple/noise values increased with load to a bit below 25mV. However, once we moved into the upper half of the unit’s DC output capacity in Test #3, the Torture Test, and Test #4 these values dropped to below 10mV of ripple/noise. At the same time the 12v rails ripple/noise values continued to increase throughout testing but peaked at ~60-70mV or just 1/2 of the ATX12v specification limit. These results are a bit unique with the reversing of the values seen on the minor rails but overall these results are very good.

Noise

The Kingwin ABT-1220MA1S has a lot of things going for it when it comes to its ability to be a quiet power supply. The ABT-1220MA1S has a 140mm while the unit additionally sports excellent efficiency that was greater than 82% at all load levels and AC input voltages we tested it at. In addition to those two important features the ABT-1220MA1S's fan controller seemed to be tuned for sound over cooling as we saw some significant leaps in exhaust temperature during load testing, although none of these changes resulted in a peak temperatures nearly as high as the last Kingwin power supply we saw. Throughout our entire load testing suite the ABT-1220MA1S was exceptionally quiet and undetectable in our background. Indeed, this unit is one of the quietest 1000w+ power supplies we have seen to date.

The Bottom Line

Like the last time we reviewed a Kingwin Mach1 there are a lot of things to like about the KINGWIN Mach 1 ABT-1220MA1S from its excellent modular connectors, to its extremely quiet operation to its very beneficial 12v rail arrangement. However, unlike the last unit this unit gives us no real "buts" to our assessment as the unit also features excellent efficiency, excellent voltage regulation, and very good DC output quality. It seems as if Kingwin has addressed all of the concerns we had with the last Mach 1 and come back with a unit that is certainly in the same league as the better known power supplies on the market. If Kingwin would pair this PSU with top tier support and a warranty much more robust than the current 1 year warranty supplied this unit would be hands down one of the best 1200w+ units we have seen. As it stands there were no performance metrics that the Kingwin failed to achieve in our testing overall, and the retail cost of $329.99 puts this unit right in the sweet spot of excellent 1200w+ units on the market.

The KINGWIN Mach 1 ABT-1220MA1S power supply is easily a HardOCP Editor’s Choice Gold Award winner when looking at testing alone. The one caveat the buyer needs to be aware of is that their shiny new ~$330 PSU is only backed with a 1 year warranty. We would feel much more comfortable suggesting your buy this unit if it carried a 3 year warranty at the least.