Raidmax Aluminum Series PSU

The Raidmax Aluminum Series PSU
400 Watts of Goodness...

By, Robert Maloney
June 30, 2002

Since we don?t have the equipment to take any measurments of the power load, ripple, etc...we can?t give you any overly technical numbers. What we can tell you though is that this unit does indeed run as quiet as advertised, even with the extra fan on the inside. This extra fan literally sucks the hot air out of the system forcing it out the other end of the PSU. To show how much of a difference this unit made to my system, I measured the CPU and board temperatures with the original 300 Watt Power Supply, and then with the 400 Watt Raidmax using Motherboard Monitor..

The Hot Hardware Test System Athlon Powered

MSI K7T266Pro2-RU 6380 Motherboard
Athlon 1800XP CPU
256Mb Crucial PC2100 DDR
Visiontek GeForce 3 Ti 500
Hercules Fortissimo II
USRobotics 56k PCI Gaming Modem
3COM 3C905B-TX Network Interface Card
2 x 40Gb IBM ATA100 7200rpm DeskStar Hard Drives
16x Pioneer DVD-ROM
100Mb Iomega ATAPI Zip Drive
1.44Mb Mitsumi Floppy Drive
Thermaltake Volcano Orb 3 HSF
PC Power&Cooling 80mm Silencer Case Fan

Temperature and Voltage Comparisons MBM in the House

We?re not looking at a super change in temperature, but every bit counts, especially when overclocking a system. The additional fan not only keeps the power supply cooler, the increased exhaust airflow decreased the temperatures within the case as well.

Next, we wanted to check the voltages output of the power supply units at both idle, and with a substantial load. To tax the system, and thereby the PSU, we ran the following applications concurrently: Internet Explorer 6, Word 2002, Outlook 2002, Editpad, SiSoft Sandra, Motherboard Monitor, WinAmp 2.79, Windows Media Player 7.1, MSN Messenger, WS FTP, and WinDVD XP, and at the same time played a music CD, searched the hard drives for files, and accessed a Zip disk. As described on their website, http://mbm.livewiredev.com/, Motherboard Monitor is a tool that will display information taken from the sensor built into many new motherboards.

Deer 300W ? Idle


Deer 300W ? With Load

Even at idle, the voltages coming out of the Deer 300W PSU are somewhat off of what they should be, and the CPU voltage is lower than the expected 1.75 Volts.  When the system is stressed by running applications and accessing the various drives, the lines are even more away from center. The -5V voltage line is off by 10%. Clearly, more voltage regulation is needed.

RaidMax 400W ? Idle
 

RaidMax 400W ? With Load

At idle, the CPU voltage was better, but actually dipped slightly below the Dear PSU under load. Almost all of the rails were close to the expected value, at both idle and with a load, except for the -12V which was off by about the same in both tests.

The Raidmax 400Watt Power Supply Unit is advertised as a superior power supply due to its aluminum construction, voltage regulation, and increased airflow from the dual fan system. After comparing these three categories against another unit, I would have to agree. The unit is definitely sharper-looking than your standard grey PSUs, and would go perfect with a custom-built or modified PC chassis. The twin fans are not only up to the task of getting hot air out of the system, but they are also very quiet. Voltages are kept well within expected limits, and this stability should provide reliability when reading and writing data to your drives. What I also liked were the extra long Molex connectors, of which there are 6, which should usually be enough to reach all of your drives, even in larger cases. There really weren?t any negatives about the Raidmax 400Watt Power Supply Unit, and that is why I am giving it a 9.5 on the HotHardware Heat Meter.

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