Virtual-Hideout | GlacialPower GP-AL650 Power Supply Review

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GlacialPower GP-AL650 Power Supply Review

Date Published:
09-02-2008

Written By:
Tulatin

Edited By:
Diceman

Provided By:
GlacialPower

Where to Buy:
GlacialPower

Discuss Article:
VH Forum link

Pages: 1

Introduction:

GlacialPower GP-AL650 Watt Power Supply

When it comes to a product with a new brand name on the shelf, there's a few questions that spring to mind - who makes this, who supports this, is this rebranded from something, is this any good, and by extension when the price is low enough: am I about to buy a lemon? It's in sentiments such as these that reviews, and review sites are important; manufacturers with few product offerings in a marketplace can come to websites like Virtual-Hideout, and receive and objective slice of how that market will react to their product.

More importantly, maybe that's just a roundabout way of me saying that Glacialtech isn't exactly a household name in the North American Marketplace. Rather than guiding the users over to Glacialtech's website to read their carefully crafted statements designed to ebb into the public image, I felt it best to give you all the jist of it - as not every reader has two centuries to read every review.

That being said, Glacialtech is the brainchild of eight world class researchers, each with a field of specialization pertinent towards cooling, chassis, and power regulation. Considering that the company was founded in 2001 and had yet to make any memorable impact on the North American enthusiast market, we can assume that for this period of time before they had focused on providing OEM and ODM manufacturing - designing products to meet the needs of specific companies across the globe.

Now snap forward to 2006, when a team of talented engineers with over 12 years of experience come together under the Glacialpower name - a subsidiary of Glacialtech, which utilizes their combined 12 years of experience in the Switch Mode Power Supply (SMPS) industry to begin crafting top grade hardware. Don't believe me? Then ask Cisco, Dell or IBM - just three of the companies for which these engineers have built custom power supplies. With a pedigree such as this, there's little wonder in the promise of quality in the GP-AL650 - a product which might just be a hit, that is if they can break the Foxconn syndrome - making informative names that are effectively impossible to enunciate.

Features & Specifications:

Ah yes, it's everyone's favorite time again - Features, and Specifications. You know the drill, loyal readers.

Features:

ATX12V Version 2.2
Design with active PFC function
Dual +12V rails and +5Vsb capability 15 W
Full output power from 0°C to 50°C
Full protection features of SCP, OVP, OCP, OPP, OTP
Power efficiency meet Energy Star 80 plus program criterion
Fan speed control and delay shut down to extend components life time
Fan switch off (0 dBA) at low load and selectable between 8cm and 12cm
RoHS compliance and 2 yesr warranty
Manufactured with high reliability and in strict processes

Specifications:

Hey! Where did the bullet points go? Well, to be honest, Glacialpower has uploaded a Three Page PDF file, detailing everything you could possibly want to know about the supply, and honestly, maybe a bit more. Since I figure you guys didn't want to scroll through three pages of data, or see what abominations thumb nailing could make of them, I just left the link. Be warned, that PDF files do like to take their time loading.

Now, if you're actually reading this, you'll notice something funky in the features section - that this power supply has 15W on the +5Vsb rail - a rail that normally carries somewhere around .5a; what exactly is this useful for, you may ask? On most modern motherboards, you have the option via jumper to select whether you want your USB ports to be powered by the 5V bus, or via 5Vsb; the upshot of the latter of course, is that they receive power when the system is off. This is great for sensitive hardware, as well as keyboards that you can power on, or even some of the myriad, questionably useful contraptions that chain themselves to the USB port. Having a fair deal of wattage available here keeps those ports from tripping all over themselves. That's definitely a good thing.

A Closer Look:

While the other member of this power supply review family tends to strike with a more sober color scheme, Glacialtech has chosen to provide a box not only with the product, but also with a bit of style. If there's any sense in firing your marketing campaign along as wide an angle as possible - and Inwin's crystal speckled case proving an example - it's that occasionally having a box with a splash of "Pretty" thrown in might grab the attention of the fairer sex; and perhaps sway a quick buying decision. Turning the box over, the usual suspects can be found - detailing the supply's output rails, it's fanspeed over temperature, and even it's (albeit relatively common) Features. The one thing this box fails to mention is the strange as hell cover used by the power supply; something that we'll cover later.

Box Front

Box Rear

On pulling the power supply from the box itself, a soft foam encased unit in a slightly rough matte black finish greeted me - but with a strange stance. Rather than feature the four countersunk screws on the top panel, they were spread across the top and bottom - meaning that when the cover was removed, it would expose the bottom circuit board of the power supply. To not mince words about the hazard of this, be extremely careful opening this supply, and NEVER do it while it's plugged in. To anyone wondering just why the user would want to open the unit, the answer might be just because they can - after all, none of the screws are covered up by a warrantee sticker that would need to be broken to open the unit. or perhaps it would be in the interest of sleeving the other cables - after all, only the ATX connector's sleeving extends fully into the power supply chassis. Without much more to say about the unit's exterior, a few photos of the grounds are in order before the connections end up splayed across the sidewalk.

Supply and manual	The supply alone	Ratings sticker
Empty rear end	ADDA Fan	Watch your fingers

Sprawling forward from the inside of the GPAL650 like some sort of Hydra related analogy, the power supply's ample bounty of connections should be enough to suit any user who would be buying this supply for an average system, though users of monster rigs need not apply. Among these, are a 20 + 4 Pin ATX Connector, 4 + 4 Pin EPS connector, 2 6 +2 pin PCI Express connectors, 6 SATA Connectors (2 normal, 4 right angle), and 6 Molex connectors with quick removal tabs. This is a fairly good selection for a unit of this nature, but it really does need to be brought to light that short of utilizing splitters, users will be unable to run an HD4870 Crossfire, or GTX 260/280 SLI setup. This isn't even a matter of the unit being unable to supply the current necessary for these cards, but rather a matter of there being a simply inadequate amount of connectors. However, considering that each 6+2 pin connector should be able to be split up into 2 6 pin connectors, while still maintaining the electrical standards of PCI Express, users ordering the correct adapters at the time of purchase should be without issue.

20 + 4	2x 6 + 2 PCI Express
6x SATA connectors	6x Molex connectors

With the cabling hanging from the torso of the GPAL650 thoroughly analyzed, it's time to take a look at what regulates the power under the hood. During the slightly frustrating disassembly process, the first thing I noticed about the unit was the installed airflow deflector - which directs the full force of the air pushed into the chassis by the Adda fan, and first directs it over the rear most components, utilizing the pressure generated here to push it over the remainder of the circuitry inside the unit, and out the back. Considering the amount of air which could be felt exiting the unit (a real scientific measure, I know), I would wager that a simple piece of bent plastic such as this can drastically help temperatures by ensuring that components which really need it will remain cooled. Everything is fairly well packed in here, and along with the ridged heatsinks, intended to keep air flowing at as high of speeds as possible. Near to the front of the unit, the Active PFC module can be seen which helps boost the power supply's efficiency, as well as remove the hassle and risk of the voltage selector switch.

ADDA Fan	The deflector
A straight-forward design	The front end

With that exhaustive tour of the grounds finally completed, it's time to take a look at the performance, and the conclusion.

Performance:

System Spec:
- Intel E8400 @ 4GHz 1.42v
- ASUS P5K-E WiFi AP @ 479FSB
- 4x1GB Kingmax Mars DDR2-1066 @ 1129, 2.1v
- 2x ATI Radeon HD4850 @ 650/1075
- 5x Hard Drives, and a Bevy of Fans.

In order to adequately test the performance of a power supply, you need two things - a test you can always repeat, and a method which neatly categorizes all data collected during the run. Thankfully, we have both. Testing is performed by simultaneously running 3DMark '06 and OCCT 2.0.0a over the course of a 30 minute test. In order to keep the videocards under load, the Canyon test in 3DMark2006 test is given 19 loops, at the stock settings - this drops back to the desktop just in time for OCCT's monitoring phase. The result of this are graphs which show how the voltages of the PSU's rails - 12v, 5v, 3.3v and vCore fluctuate - and naturally, the less they do this, the better. That being said, it's time to go onto the hybrid graphs!

V-Core

3.3v

12v

In all, the performance of the GP-AL650 is good in general, but not for a 650W supply. If you take a look at the graph above, it's effectively the doppelganger of the Enermax Liberty; a power supply which is three years older, and rated to output 150W less, though the rails hold around the same capacity. This isn't to say that the Glacialtech is a bad unit, it's simply to say that I feel it is a little bit over-rated. Yes, the power supply may be able to produce 650w, but this is at the absolute maximum of the device's capabilities. Just one look at the amperage outputs after all - while many other manufacturers rate their supplies far under the maximum amperages listed, Glacialtech has their unit adding up every possible watt. On the plus side, though, the unit does feature an 80 Plus certification, and kept pace in terms of a load during testing.

All three supplies hovered around similar levels, with the Glacialtech taking a middle section in the pack. Though it's PF was the lowest of the group, it turned out to not have a negative effect on the overall performance.

Conclusion:

Well, we're finally here. First, the short of it - is this a good product? Yes, but. It features high quality components, good quality cabling, a quiet, intuitive design, fairly stable voltage rails, and almost the same amount of connectors found on the recently reviewed BFG ES800 - a much more expensive and robust unit. But, I feel that this power supply is over-rated in terms of wattage. The performance is just as indicative of this as the ratings chart is - in effect, I would feel much, much more confident calling this unit a sober 500w, than an eager 650w.

That being said, there is an although to this case - a bit of a silver lining. With fairly inexpensive adapters, this power supply has the capacity to handle much more - a full blown SLI or CrossFire setup, which I feel confident it would be capable of handling. Unfortunately, if the user were to try and operate a quad GPU setup with this unit, it would require the use of a pair of 2x Molex -> PCI Express connectors, a move which may put too much strain on the unit's hardware; but hey, 2 out of 3 isn't bad. In that respect, this unit earns just that - our respect. It isn't every day a new manufacturer makes the market, and it's also not every day that the product they create is of great quality. Perhaps with a little more tinkering this unit can go from a good product to a superior unit, but that is a battle for a day other than today.

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