Cooler Master V650: the fully-modular brother of VS (updated)

Conclusion and evaluation

The Cooler Master V650 passed the combined and crossload testing in accordance with the ATX specification, so according to my evaluation methodology, it is deserving of its evaluation. The Vanguard series from Enhance Electronics is definitely an upgrade to the V Semi Modular which sits within practically the same price range. But I am somewhat worried that it’s still not reaching where it should be with regard to models from its top competitors from manufacturers who also update their platforms very regularly. In my opinion this unit is – together with many other competitors models – at second place. Its ripple suppression is just great, but on the other hand I expected even tighter voltage regulation, especially when the V650 has sense wires there for exactly this purpose. Also, the build quality is not what you’d expect from a high-end unit, and this seems to be a long-term problem of this OEM.

Thanks to its slow-spinning fan, the unit was silent from start to the end. Under overload it was hot and noisy, but that makes sense when the unit was putting out over 1 kW. It reached the best overload results from any other unit relative to its rated power so far. I would say that the resonant full-bridge topology gives a design quite a significant power reserve. The cooling is also nicely overdesigned as the V650 took well over 10 minutes to overheat. For both these achievements the V650 receives our new Strongman award.

Other than that, the efficiency was nice. It has all the high-end features like protections (although I only tested the OTP), quality components, modular cabling, and a 5-year warranty. Unfortunately, more and more competing units have much longer warranties, with a longer coverage than “just” 5 years, and even with all that, they cost less. This may vary depending on the market, but here in the Czech Republic, the price of the V650 is higher than that of better performing competing units.

The value of the Cooler Master V650 as a high-end unit is as follows:

• component/technology quality: 7 p. (− for thinner wires and lack of gold-plating, + for working OTP, + for extra saver technology, + for secondary side overdesigning)
• built quality: 5 p. (− for soldering flux residue mess, − for bad solder coverage)
• voltage regulation: 11 p. (− for combined loading, + for crossloading)
• ripple: 14.5 p. (+ for combined loading, + for crossloading)
• efficiency: 11 p. (+ for higher efficiency)
• hold-up time: 4 p. (− for shorter hold-up time)
• others: 19 p. (+ for great overload possibility, + for long operation without cooling, + for low fan speed/low noise operation, + for modular cabling, + for longer warranty, + for extra equipment, + for molex clips)

The end result is very good, quite good at each evaluated category, and overall better than with the V550S. It is not exceptional though, so I decided to give it a Silver award.

So as a high-end product, the V650 gets a value of 71.5. Assuming the cost is 3000 CZK, then the price per value ratio would be 100×71.5/3000 = 2.38. We can see that while the value is high, for the price it is not the best. In fact, it’s worse than even the SFX Corsair SF600.

Pros	+ low fan speed, silent running + working OTP + OK voltage regulation + outstanding ripple suppression + high efficiency + generously overdesigned + reasonable warranty + fully-modular cabling + great overload capability + runs long without any cooling
Cons	− shorter hold-up time − higher price − not the thickest wiring − no connector gold-plated
Be aware of…	/?\ build quality /?\ −12 V regulation/ripple

Thanks

I thank the IT Trade company for providing the Cooler Master V650 unit.

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