Cooler Master i700
Overview
Hardware: Cases & PSUWHAT WE LIKED:
Simple black styling; Very affordable; Good performance; 80PLUS BronzeWHAT WE DISLIKED:
Not modular; Noisy fan at load; Cable lengths sufficient only for mid-tower caseDiscuss in the Forum
Introduction
The power requirements of enthusiast and gaming PCs have increased dramatically over the last few years, due to the development of ever more powerful and sophisticated CPUs and graphics processors. During this time, the computer power supply unit has risen in stature from being an anonymous, unimportant component choice to become one of the most fundamentally important components in any modern PC.
While the general trend has been higher energy consumption, there are many consumers that don’t need a high end kilowatt power supply. There is a considerable market for mid-range units to power a single graphics card setup, somewhere around 600W to 700W of power.
The Cooler Master i700 is one such mid-range power supply, and while it’s not a beast like one of Cooler Master’s premium V-Series units, the i700 is 80PLUS Bronze certified and comes with a very affordable price tag of $80 ($69 after rebate that we’ve currently seen).
Seems like a very enticing budget-oriented unit, so let’s take a closer look at this Cooler Master i700 power supply and see how it fares.