I originally bought this PSU to replace my Enermax 470W EG475P-SFMA24P PSU which was not working well with my VapoChill PE. It was giving E021 and E020 errors which means the +12v line was dropping below 9.6V. This means that the PSU wasn't strong enough to drive everything, especially when overclocked. The Enermax had split 12V lines (16A / 15A) which are not good with the VapoChill as the VapoChill will always be running off the same 12v line as the CPU. So basically I had the two most power consuming devices on the one 16A line. With the VapoChill using 6.8A @ 100watts that didn't leave much for running the CPU at overclocked speeds.
So after some consulting on multiple forums I was recommended to buy a high-end PSU with a single 12v rail so I could continue overclocking. PC Power and Cooling are regarded as the best manufacturers of PSUs in the world because of the quality of components they use, the rating method that they use and the 5 year warranty offered with them. I decided to get the Turbo-Cool 510 Deluxe because it was black to match my case and it comes with braided cables unlike the standard 510 ATX model. I didn't need the PCI-E connectors offered with the 510 Express / SLI model either, so the 510 Deluxe seemed the best choice.
Now you'll be wondering what the specs are for this beast so I'll detail some of them:
Features:
The beefiest caps, inductors, heat sinks, etc.
The best sag and surge protection (.99 PFC)
The tightest voltage regulation (+VDC@ 1%)
The cleanest power (+VDC ripple @ 0.5%)
Deluxe case and output harness
Output
510W (650W peak) @ 50°C (industrial rated)
+3.3V @ 30A
+5V @ 40A
+12V @ 34A / 38A peak
Efficiency: 70%
Regulation: 1% (+3.3, +5, +12)
Noise: 34 - 44dB(A)
Temperature:
0°- 50°C
Compatibility: ATX12V (2.03)
MTBF: 100,000 hrs.
Warranty: 5 years
Connectors: 20pin, 4pin P4,
7xMolex, 4xSATA, 1xFloppy
Dimensions: 150width x 140depth x 86height (mm)
AC Input
Operating Range:
90 - 264v AC (0.99 power factor
auto-select)
Frequency:
47 - 63Hz
Sounds pretty good to me and they've even done a nice comparison for us comparing it to other PSUs. From what I can understand all other PSU manufacturers rate their wattage at 25°C which is unrealistic because the load temperatures are closer to 40°C so other PSUs are actually producing 33% less power than what they are advertised for. This graph explains it well:
So when the the system is under heavy load and the hot Intel air is pouring in through your PSUs second fan, the PSU might only be outputting 300W! Some other things mentioned are the Regulation. Now other PSU manufacturers are prepared to allow 5% deviation on the +3.3v, +5v and +12v rails but PCP&C will only accept 1% change. So other PSUs might drop to 11.4v on the +12v rail and they would consider that fine, but PCP&C will only allow it to drop to 11.88v which is very good. It also explains that PSUs with a second fan are ineffective.
I initially wondered if this PSU would work on our NZ power supply and I did some digging around. Turns out the PSU has active PFC which automatically adjusts for AC input voltage. So in the case of our power supply which runs at 230-volts, AC at 50 Hz (same as Australia and Europe) the PSU will automatically adjust.
I ordered mine direct from the manufacturer at a cost of $266.08 USD ($197.10 + $68.98 shipping). This came to $371.29 NZD after conversion at 1 NZD = 0.7166 USD. Mine took 5 working days to arrive because it was shipped with Fed Ex 2day and I needed it rather quickly. Not too bad from all the way from Carlsbad, California. You can get cheaper shipping by using US Postal Service Air Mail at $57.13 USD but I've had items sent with that before and it sometimes takes over 3 weeks to arrive.
It was delivered to my door by CourierPost and arrived in a big, plain, brown box. The PSU was shrink wrapped and protected by lots of small styrofoam pieces. Good to see money isn't being wasted on fancy packaging I reckon. It came with a small 4page instruction booklet and an interesting power cable which won't fit in our wall sockets. I am just using a spare power cable that I had lying around. Overall inspection looks excellent, the cables are thin and fully wrapped. The cables are actually manoeuvrable so you can move that big 20pin connector wherever you want unlike a 350W Enermax I once had. Also features adjustable rails which may prove useful one day.
I counted the drive connectors on mine and it actually came with 7 molex, 4 SATA and 1 floppy connectors but the web site states it comes with 10 including only 2 SATA and 1 floppy. Oh well, an extra 2 SATA cables, I'm not complaining. Here is an inside view of the PSU for those interested and then onto the testing:
Testing setup - full specs
VapoChill PE
Intel 3.2E @ 4Ghz
DFI 875B Rev B
1 GB RAM
Sapphire X800 Pro Vivo with 16 pipelines @ 540 MHz / 1140 MHz
WD Raptor, SATA, 36 GB, 10000 RPM, 8 MB cache
WD
SE, 160 GB, 7200 RPM, 8 MB cache
Seagate 7200.7, 120 GB, 7200 RPM, 8 MB cache
Liteon SOHW-832S Dual Layer, Dual Format writer
Floppy drive
2 system fans.
Test 1:
Enermax 470W EG475P-SFMA24P
Test 2: PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 Deluxe
Testing methodology
I measured my spare Enermax PSU as well to see how that stacks up against this one. I have a multi meter here and I measured the rails when the system was idle and under load. To measure the rails I just got a spare molex connector and connected like so:
12v rail
Red lead off multi meter -> yellow wire on molex
Black lead off the multi meter -> black wire on molex
5v rail
Red lead off multi meter -> red wire on molex
Black lead off the multi meter -> black wire on molex
3.3v rail
Red lead off multi meter -> orange wire on 20pin connector
Black lead off the multi meter -> black wire on 20pin connector
Load testing method: 2 instances of Prime95 Max Heat, and AtiTool scan for artifacts. Test for 30 seconds or so and get readings off multi meter
Test Results:
| IDLE TEST |
Enermax 470W |
510 Deluxe |
| +3.3V |
3.27 - 3.28 |
3.31 |
+5V |
5.15 |
5.16 |
+12V |
12.18 - 12.19 |
12.16 |
Here the 3.3v rail on the Enermax is a bit low, but still within spec. Rest of the specs are within good range.
|
LOAD TEST |
Enermax 470W |
510 Deluxe |
|
+3.3V |
3.24 - 3.26 |
3.29 - 3.30 |
+5V |
5.07 - 5.10 |
5.15 |
+12V |
12.08 - 12.09 |
12.16 - 12.17 |
The 3.3v rail on the Enermax under load drops quite low, barely within the 5% tolerance range. Possibly due to the first 12v rail being loaded more than it was designed for. I measured the 12v rail coming out of a molex connector and that might have been the second 12v rail. I should probably re-run the test with it plugged into the 12v rail on the 4pin P4 connector to measure the first 12v rail. A few more minutes of this torture on the Enermax lead to a shutdown and a E021 error. The 510 Deluxe however seems to hold strong even under heavy load.
Conclusions
After a week of usage and some gaming in Doom 3 it can get a little noisy after some heavy gaming. It seems to have 3 distinct fan speeds which must vary depending on load, or temperature inside the PSU. The lowest is very quiet, you won't hear it above the other components. Medium you can just hear it with the other components running, and high speed it gets reasonably loud. It doesn't get up to high speed very often, I only heard it when I finished playing Doom 3. In other words I couldn't hear it above the speakers when playing. It took a minute or so after that to quiet down to medium fan speed, and then another few minutes to get down to low speed.
Overall I'm very happy with this PSU, it looks great and it performs very well especially when under heavy load. I would recommend anyone to buy one of these if you are a power user and want to make a good investment in a top quality PSU. Sure it may be expensive but you get what you pay for and it's around the same price you would pay for a 520W OCZ PowerStream and it's probably better too as their wattage ratings are more accurate.
Pros
Continuous 510W output even at 50°C
Looks great, fully braided cables that are small
Plenty of connectors including 4 SATA cables
Built with quality components
1%
regulation on all important rails
Adjusts automatically to our NZ power supply
Adjustable rails
Single fan
5 year warranty
Cons
Expensive to import
to NZ ($255+ USD)
Fan can get a little noisy at high speed
Score: 9 / 10