CeBIT 2016 Hannover: power supplies, enclosures and more

Cooler Master

Cooler Master exhibited their power supplies, but besides the already newly announced Master Power series (digital 80 PLUS Titanium certified) there was nothing that new. I got confirmation that the V Semi Modular series is officially EoL’d with the V series taking over. Hopefully I will be able to get few samples of those as well. The OEM of the new Master Power is not known yet though.

CM_chladice CM_zdroje

Otherwise their booth was mostly all about the new MasterCase series of cases. These should be somewhat user customizable cases with the Pro 5 already launched and the new Maker 5 being shown at CES 2016. Here we can see some of the components and also the Maker 8 cooler.

CM_MasterCase_Pro_5 CM_MasterCase_Maker_5

The Maker 8 should provide similar cooling capabilities to the Noctua NH-D15. It is taller, but supposedly lighter so it should also physically stress the motherboard less. Upon sharing my concern about its height, I was told that the plastic parts (which Cooler Master likes) can be removed and also smaller fans (120mm) may be installed to make the cooler somewhat shorter. Though the performance will most likely drop with smaller fans. CM hopes for this fan to make a new impact on an already heavily overcrowded market, similar to the V8 cooler.

CM_vodni_chladic

If it doesn’t go well for them, Cooler Master will also release a new water cooling set, shown on the CES. Though I fail to see much difference over the old ones, I think the main feature here is you can now see the fluid through a window in the pump. Yay.

CM_klavesnice_mys CM_periferie

And as I predict even this market will be oversaturated by the end of this year, there still exists the peripherals market, so Cooler Master is adding more Masterkeys and other keyboards and mouses with all the Cherry or rubber-dome keys, different backlight colors, sharp-angled shapes, laser or traditional optical sensors. Some of them are meant for hardcore gamers as they come without a numpad. There are never enough of those. Or are there? Should traditional manufacturers of peripherals worry about their slice of the pie? Personally I’m also getting my share of the profits with increasing numbers of microswitches I’m selling for the repair of all these low-quality (yet expensive) mice, so who is going to buy all that?

Corsair

Corsair had a booth at CeBIT 2016, but didn’t really exhibit anything new. The new SFX units were not there and otherwise there were really only a few of their older units, and the new Vengeance series, which may find a way to the Czech Republic someday, but is mostly really only meant for Germany. But we did discuss some of the issues I found with the HXi (its review is not yet fully finished :D), and my points were taken and hopefully it will go through the proper Corsair channels and some action will be taken in future. I also asked for other models, like the new CX/CXM units with the synchronous platform and have been told that in near future, these will also end up in Europe. There’s still a stock of the older versions out there, so obviously Corsair wants to sell it out first, and only than make a smooth transition to the newer ones.

I also heard that there are some plans in place for further improvement of their RMA procedure, perhaps including some form of user registration. Because as for extended warranties of 7 or even 10 years, the real concern is with people losing their invoices, effectively losing the warranty in such case. But registration in itself is also not without its faults so they are still considering other possibilities. So lets just hope Corsair does indeed follow through Smile

Deepcool

While others were continuously covering the same brands and products over and over and over again, I personally found it prudent to check out some of these lesser-known brands, though Deepcool is certainly not a no-name brand. They had a surprise for CeBIT 2016 which nobody else seemed to have found. There, on the shelf, without much special attention and without much knowledge from Deepcool’s own staff, I discovered a prototype of an 80 PLUS Titanium certified, 700W power supply unit. Gotcha!

Deepcool_DQ700T_2 Deepcool_DQ700T_1 Deepcool_DQ700T_0

Little is known about this DQ700T unit other than that it comes with fixed cabling and offers a single +12V rail. I could not recognize the OEM through the grilles but those ChengX primaries are not really giving me any hope. Also, a new Platinum model, based most likely on the same platform was there, the DQ700P.

Deepcool_DQ700P

Then there were some of the older Gold-certified units as well.

Deepcool_DQ850 Deepcool_DQ750ST

Deepcool also showed some newer cases, The Dukase V2 and the Gamer Storm Genome. Both share similar features with new Antec cases I already wrote about earlier, like only a couple 5.25″ bays and zone-cooling with hard drives in the bottom zone. It seems this is going to be a mainstream design, at least for a while. The Genome also seems to have a CPU water cooling system embedded.

Deepcool_Dukase_WHV2 Deepcool_Gamer_Storm_Genome

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