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iCute Aluminum 300 & 420 Watt


Date
: 04/18/02 – 02:31:20 AM

Author
:

Category
: Power Supplies

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer: iCute Tech. Corp.

Price 300W : N/A
Price 420W : N/A

Introduction

So how can we start an introduction of a power supply review? Well, let me think now for a minute … Alright, I found something. Here we go …

Did you already notice how popular aluminum cases have become lately? Many folks want to have a beautiful case like that to show off at a LAN party or something. Don't be ashamed, I know the feeling ;) The only 'problem' here is that many of today's popular quality alu cases come
without
a power supply. This is where the trouble starts because many of you will then go out and buy the cheapest power supply they can get without really considering the issues this cheap purchase might cause after they put it in their case. Of course, not all of you have this mentality, but there sure are quite a few out there who know what I'm talking about here, don't you? ;) But seriously, did you know that AMD recommends a +300W PSU for every CPU that runs at +1GHz? I bet you didn't know that huh. And do you think a P4 system running at 2.2GHz with two hard drives running in a RAID-0 config, a high end video card and DVD Writer doesn't consume a truckload of power? I bet that if you try to power up all of this stuff with only a generic (white label) 250W or 300W PSU, you'll turn your PC into some highly explosive material. Such cheap-ass power supply units just can't handle the continuous peak performance demand of ultra high end rigs.

This is where iCute comes to the rescue with their high end power supplies. Today Overclockers Online has the chance to check out two of iCute's high end power supply units, the 300W aluminum and the 420W iCute4 series PSU.

Get ready to be amazed …

Page 2 : The 300W PSU

Specifications

iCute Aluminum 300W PSU

- Aluminum case
- Supports Pentium 4
- Compliant with AMD K7
- 115V or 230V Input
- Meets ATX 2.03 & ATX +12V 1.1 Version
- PFC Available
- Dual fans

+3.3V : 14A
+5V : 30A
+12V : 15A and 180W Max
+3.3V & +5V : 160W Max
Total Output : 300W Max

The iCute 300W PSU (with product number AL-3000P4) has an all aluminum construction. This alu material makes the PSU weigh much less compared to other similar power supplies. To cool down the PSU and to get rid of tons of hot air from inside the case, iCute has chosen to install one 80mm fan on the bottom of the PSU next to the normal one at the backside. I'd like to note that both 80mm fans are fully temperature controlled and they both come with fan brackets. The alu construction looks and is very smooth without sharp sides that might result in bloody fingers. That's really important to me ;)

iCute has decided to equip their 300W PSU with no less than 7 big molex connectors which is a good thing if you have lots of hard drives, CD-ROM drives, and other hardware that need these molex connectors. The PSU also has 2 small connectors to power your heavily used 3.5" disk drives. And because this iCute power supply had to meet all the latest ATX power requirements and also had to have P4 support, we also see the necessary connectors coming out of the PSU to be fully equipped and ready for the battle!

Page 3 : The 420W PSU

iCute4 420W PSU

- Aluminum case
- Available in two Colors (aluminum and champagne "gold")
- Supports Pentium 4
- Compliant with AMD K7
- 115V or 230V Input
- Meets ATX 2.03 & ATX +12V 1.1 Version
- PFC Available
- Dual fans

+3.3V : 28A
+5V : 40A
+12V : 18A and 216W Max
+3.3V & +5V : 245W Max
Total Output : 420W Max

You might think that both iCute power supplies we have on the test bench today are very similar besides the difference in output. Well, let me tell you that this statement certainly is not true. The two power supplies show some rather big differences in construction.

The iCute4 420W PSU looks a whole lot more high end compared to the 300W PSU. It's nice to know that you can get the iCute4 power supplies in two colors … the original Alu color and a kind of 'golden' champagne color. We've received the 'gold' one for this review. The golden enclosure of the PSU is a little bit ribbled. The biggest difference with the 300W iCute PSU and similar products from other manufacturers is the location of the second fan. Yep folks, the 420W PSU comes with dual 80mm fans each of them equipped with a fan guard. Now, to return to the odd location of the second fan … look at the pictures … do you see the fan? :p

The second fan is located on the outside of the PSU. This results in the fact that the 420W PSU is about 2cm larger compared to power supplies with the second fan on the inside of the construction. Will this far-from-everyday location cause any problems during the installation process? To find out the answer to this question, you'll have to continue to the next page. BUT before you do that, let me first tell you briefly that the 420W iCute PSU comes with 6 big molex connectors, 2 small disk drive connectors and the whole bunch of other wires and connectors like the P4 connector and the good old AT power connector.

Let's see the peeps from O² use these iCute power supplies, shall we? …

Page 4 : Testing

Testing

AMD Test System :

- AMD 1.4GHz Athlon CPU
- IWill KK266plus-R Mainboard (reviewed here)
- Swiftech MCXC370 Heatsink (reviewed here)
- 384MB generic SDRAM
- Hercules GeForce3 Ti200 videocard (reviewed here)
- IBM 20GB UDMA100 7200rpm hard drive
- Accton 10Mbit NIC
- Accton 100Mbit NIC
- Digidoc5 (reviewed here)
- 2 x AOpen CDRW drive (reviewed here)
- Dual 92mm intake fans + neon light (reviewed here)
- WinXP Pro
- Deto 23.11

P4 Test System :

- Intel Pentium4 "Northwood" 2.2GHz CPU (reviewed here)
- Abit BD7-RAID i845D Mainboard (reviewed here)
- Vantec P4 Heatsink
- 256MB Crucial PC2100 DDR RAM
- Visiontek GeForce3 videocard (reviewed here)
- Western Digital 20GB UDMA100 7200rpm hard drive
- Accton 100Mbit NIC
- Digidoc5
- AOpen CDROM drive
- Dual 92mm intake fans
- WinXP Pro
- Deto 23.11

We had no difficulties installing the iCute 300W PSU in our relatively small AOpen HQ45 case. The power supply fits perfect. It also didn't have any problem to power up the two test systems you can see just above this paragraph. The AMD Athlon system and the Intel P4 system didn't show any sign of BSODs, random lockups, boot failure, or whatsoever caused by a bad power supply. Even when we did some serious overclocking, the PSU kept on going and going and going and … well, you know ;) The only bad thing I have to say about this PSU is that it's pretty loud when both 80mm are at full speed (remember that they are temperature controlled). Even when the system was idle, both fans kept running at full speed all the time. This is what's causing all the noise. They should work on fine-tuning the temperature sensor. It should be able to lower the fan speed and obviously also the noise level when the system is idle during the night for example. As far as temperatures are concerned … the case temperature went down from 31°C to 29°C when using the iCute 300W PSU instead of the stock AOpen 250W PSU. This decrease in case temp also resulted in a lower CPU temperature : 47°C instead of
50°C with the AOpen PSU.

Voltages @ full load (measured with the Macpower DigiDoc5)
+5V line : 5.03V
+12V line : 12.11V

We had more probs installing the iCute4 420W into our HQ45 case. Because the second 80mm fan is located on the outside of the enclosure at the backside, the PSU doesn't fit properly in the PSU space of the HQ45 case. The outside fan is on the same place as a small steel plate that keeps an average PSU on the right spot inside the AOpen case. We had to remove that steel plate to complete the installation process. This certainly is one big issue that comes with using an outside fan. I think noone loves cutting their case apart just to install a PSU. That's just it for the bad things. Honestly, we haven't had any other problem with this iCute4 PSU so far and we have been running it continuous in our AMD server rig for more than 4 weeks now. Another note I'd like to make is that the 420W is far from being as noisy as the 300W we discussed earlier. An reason for this might be the different fan manufacturer or a lower fan speed on the 420W model. By the way, with this PSU we achieved the exact same temperatures as with the 300W model. Very nice!

Voltages @ full load (measured with the Macpower DigiDoc5)
+5V line : 5.12V
+12V line : 12.25V

Page 5 : Conclusion

Conclusion

Good

- Aluminum
- Excellent Quality
- Superb Performance
- P4 Support
- Dual Fans
- Connectors : 300W : 7 molex – 420W : 6 molex
- Can be used as a mirror

Bad

- iCute4 420W might not fit in all cases
- 300W PSU is a little noisy

Well, I believe this list of pros and cons gives us a brief description of what we like and dislike about the iCute power supplies. First of all, both power supplies we looked at in this review come with an aluminum enclosure which makes them both lightweight contestants. In our test, both PSUs performed as they should have given their total power output. Neither one of them showed any weakness in our powerful and power-hungry Intel and AMD test systems. The only drawback on the 300W PSU is that it is a little too noisy for a 300W PSU. Nevertheless, the cooling power of the PSU is excellent. Also one problem with the 420W and that is the second outside fan which could lead to installation problems in some (smaller) cases. According to what iCute peeps told us during last months edition of the CeBIT trade fair, the pricetag of these iCute power supplies will be sort of on par with prices of the most important competition (read Enermax). Don't let the name iCute scare you off just because it isn't as popular and well-known as Enermax … iCute has a similar quality and performance level. It's definitely worth buying as a high performance PSU! These iCute power supplies won't let you down!