GlacialPower GP-AL 650W PSU review

Page 3 - Mounting and testing of GlacialPower GP-AL 650W

The mounting of the PSU in our Cooler Master Mystique 631 was effortless, as it would with any good PSU. The black colour of GlacialPower GP-AL was a perfect match for the black computer case. The cables were long enough to pass through the chosen by us paths below the motherboard, behind 5.25" and 3.5" docks, thus not creating a tangled mess inside the case. The quality connectors were plugging in snugly in their designated place, clearly clicking when and where that was appropriate :)

When testing, we checked how will the GlacialPower GP-AL 650W work both under full load and in idle with this configuration:

• Motherboard: ASUS P5K-E WIFI-AP
• CPU: Intel Core2Duo E8500
• RAM: 2x2GB A-DATA DDR800
• Video card: Albatron GeForce 8800GT
• Sound card: Creative Audidgy Value
• Hard drive 1: Western Digital Raptor 10 000rpm 36GB
• Hard drive 2: Seagate Barracuda 9 7200rpm 300GB
• Optical drive: ASUS DVD+/-RW 24x ligthscribe
• 3x120 mm fans Cooler Master + fan controller

This configuration is a serious one and suggests something around 350W-400W consumption under full load. We do indeed have a very precise measuring piece of equipment for power consumption measuring, here in the ModReactor lab, unfortunately it malfunctioned shortly before the GlacialPower 650W began, so we await a warranty replacement. That's why we promise to update very soon the review with a table showing the exact amount of power consumed by the GlacialPower GP-AL 650W with this machine. We'll also throw in for free comparison with other PSU's in this class :)

But for the time being we started simultaneously OCCT (for the CPU), ATITool (for the video card) and copied two large DVD files from one hard drive to the other. The voltages we measured with digital multimeter.

Our expectations were met - the voltages were completely stable during testing. The difference between full load and idle mode are within acceptable and apparently the PSU can handle much more buffed up PC easily (and we talk about Quad-core CPU and 2 high class video cards in SLI/Crossfire mode). There was a thing that confused us at first though - upon initial powering up with room temperature around 25 degrees if you don't load your PC for the first 10 minutes the fan doesn't work at all! Then it will turn on but will run ever so slowly and quietly! And after a prolonged period of load (about an hour of 3D gaming) even if you immediately power down your PC the PSU fan will keep working in order to speed up the cooling process, thus prolonging the life of its components! Now ain't just nice how GlacialTech took care of this detail?.