I remember a year or so ago I was looking through a PC mod gallery online and saw a mod where a guy had taken all the wires off his PSU and turned it into a modular PSU. I though that was a really cool idea, because like most of you, I had about 3 extra cables on coming out of my PSU that I had nothing to do with. Trying to make my machine look nice and organized with all those extra wires was no easy task. I had thought about modding my PSU to make it modular, but never got around to actually doing it.

A few months later, I started noticing some companies coming out with their own modular power supplies. These were generally much nicer looking than a custom one, simply because of the ability to more easily do color matching and things like that. But the most important part was that now you could actually go out and purchase a modular power supply, which makes this wonder available to everyone.

A.C.Ryan RyanPower2 450w Modular PSU

So, today I find myself in possession of an AC Ryan 450w modular power supply. My first impression upon opening the box was that this was one slick looking unit. The PSU is finished in an almost mirror like gloss black finish. All of the cables have a nice black sheath around them, and overall, it looks like a really nice package.

One thing that I found kind of odd, however, was that the AC plug that came with the unit is not made for American plugs. This isn't an issue for me, and I doubt it would be an issue for most of you either, because I've got more AC power cables floating around than outlets in my house.

This power supply, like most available today, is a dual fan model. As you can see in the images above, the finish is very nice. It also shows fingerprints quite well, but AC Ryan included a soft cloth that can be used to wipe the unit down, which is a bit above and beyond what I can say I've ever encountered with any other power supply I've had.

As you can see in the first picture, the connections on the unit include 4 standard 4-pin moles connectors, the new 24-pin ATX power connector, 2 3-pin fan connectors, and the 4-pin P4 power connector.

The cables that come with the unit include the following:

1 - PCI-Express power cable
1 - 4 Pin P4 Power Connector
1 - SATA Power Cable w/ 3 SATA connectors
1 - 3 Pin Fan Cable w/ 4 Connectors
1 - 24 Pin to 20 pin ATX Power Connector
2 - 4 Pin Molex Cables w/ 3 4-Pin Connectors
1 - 4 Pin Molex Cable w/ 3 4-Pin Connectors and 1 mini 4-pin connector (floppy connector)

This is a nice assortment of cables that should be sufficient for most people. One thing that I found to be quite odd is the 3-pin fan connector cable. This is great for someone with 4 case fans in their system, but if you don't have all 4 connectors in use, you will have bare, live connections floating around in your case that could potentially short something out if they came into contact with either the case or a component.

I found that I was lacking a needed mini 4-pin connector for my current setup. My system has 3 hard drives, 1 of which is using a SATA adapter that requires a mini 4-pin connector. I also have an Asetek water cooling kit that needs the mini 4-pin connector. So, in the middle of the PSU install I found myself wondering what to do so I could use all my components. I ended up hacking an old AT power supply I have apart to use one of its 4-pin Molex and mini 4-pin Molex connectors to make my own cable. This could be a problem for some people though, so you will want to make sure that you get all the cables you need when you buy a modular power supply.

Installation

Installing a power supply is a fairly obvious process. I am going to detail my experience while installing the AC Ryan power supply, including any good or bad things I encountered during installation. The system that I installed the power supply into consists of the following components:

ABIT AS8 Motherboard
Intel Pentium 4 530 (3 GHz) CPU
1 Gig Corsair PC4000 TwinX
MSI 6600GT Video Card
Plextor PX-504A DVD-R/RW Drive
Lite-On 48x DVD-ROM Drive
1x80 Gig Western Digital Hard Drive
1x160 Gig Western Digital Hard Drive
1x250 Gig Western Digital Hard Drive

Some of you may think that listing my hard drives and optical drives is somewhat pointless. However, for a power supply review, this aids in letting you know that I was able to connect everything, as well as give an estimate of the power consumption of my system.

While installing the unit, I noticed that all of the connections going into the power supply were quite tight. By this I mean that it took a bit of force to get the connectors into the power supply. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the connectors could fit just a little more loosely. Getting the PCI-Express video card connector to connect to my video card proved to be an extremely difficult task during which I was somewhat scared I was going to break the card. I do not know why it was so hard to push the connector in, but it was quite difficult.

The only other issue I encountered was in that there were not enough mini 4-pin Molex connectors. Aside from those minor issues, installation was simple and straightforward.

The voltage levels for all of the rails remained at normal operating levels during the operation of the machine. Here are the readings that I got while testing:

Idle:

+3.3v	+5.0v	+12v
3.4	5.17	12.32

Load:

+3.3v	+5.0v	+12v
3.39	5.11	12.29

To get the load voltages, I ran 2 DX 9 windowed applications to get the video card running, Folding@Home, Prime95 torture test and an AVI to MPG2 video encoding all at the same time. If that doesn't put a system under load, I'm really not sure what to do to get it under load. As you can see, the voltages dropped by only about .06 at the most on the +5 rail. So, it is safe to say that this PSU was more than fully capable of running my system without any problems at all.

Conclusion

Overall, the AC Ryan 450w modular power supply is an excellent unit. The only negative thing that I found about it is that there were not enough mini 4-pin connections for my setup. Aside from that, the voltage levels all stayed at proper levels, the modular cable system makes my case look a whole lot cleaner, and actually makes installation easier since I don't have to hunt around for my cables. Overall, this is a very nice power supply, and is definitely worth your checking out if you are in the market for a new modular power supply.

Pros: Modular, plenty of cables and connections for most setups, nice finish

Cons: For my system, I only needed 1 more mini 4-pin connector. Didn't come with US AC plug

Bottom Line: Modular PSUs are becoming a dime a dozen these days, and it's good to see that A.C.Ryan is offering a quality solution if you're in the market for such a PSU. You can pick up the RyanPower2 at Performance-PCs.

Hit us up in the Forums if you have any questions.

HOME