Simply
one of the most important decisions made when building your own
system is the power supply you will use. Unfortunately, there
are many of us out there that shoot our entire wad on the Video
/ Motherboard / CPU and minimize on RAM and PSU. Unfortunately,
we pay the price as time goes on, there is a definite difference
in PSU's and what they offer you in Overclocking, dependability
and stability.
Along
with clean power delivery there has come to market the need (or
desire) to have your PSU play a part in the overall scheme of
the system design. To have it play a part in the cosmetics as
it where. The other popular trend is modularization of the cables
that supply power to all of the ancillary devices inside the case.
To
this end, I present to you the Asus
Atlas 55GA. The Atlas brings 2 of the 3 above segments to
bear, giving the end user a choice that should meet most if not
all of their needs and wants in a PSU. Lets go over the specifications
for the Atlas 55GA.
| Specifications |
Type:
Intel ATX 1.3 and ATX 2.01
Input Voltage: 100-120VAC / 200-240VAC
Input Current: 10A / 5A
Input Freq range: 60Hz / 50Hz
Dual 12V Rail: Yes
Available Colors: High Gloss Black
Output Capacity: 550W Continuous
Features: EMI protected cabling, BTX compatible |
The
Asus Atlas 55GA arrives with a forward thinking ATX2.01 form
factor power supply and is also BTX compatible. If you don't
have the need for a 24 pin connector yet, no worries, the last
4 pins simply disconnect from the main power connector and you
are running with the ATX standard of 20 pins.
The
only downside (as with all of the 24 pin connector solutions)
is that the 4 pin section basically hangs there.
The
Asus Atlas 55GA has two 12V rails; combined they can supply a
maximum of 360W. The 5V and 3.3V rail supplies a maximum of 180W
and the -12V / +5Vsb 22W. In today's power hungry motherboards
and video cards, it is becoming ever necessary to have dual 12V
rails to split the load amongst the feeding devices.
The
overall aesthetics of the unit is very pleasing. While Asus ensured
the unit would compliment the system, they also ensured that it
would not distract the eyes away from the centerpiece. Who here
wants their PSU to be the center piece of your case Mod? I would
guess probably no one.
Cooling
of the Asus Atlas 55GA is handled by a single 120mm blue lit
fan, positioned underneath of the PSU. Typically you see the
fan(s) located front and/or rear, to allow air flow through
the entire unit, this is not the case for the Asus solution.
The large 120mm fan on the bottom of the unit is designed to
efficiently and quietly bring cool air in.
Notice
the pitch of the fan blades is greater than what you typically
see in a 80mm or 120mm design. This should provide more than ample
air into the unit from below instead of from the front. The rear
of the unit is a large mesh which should allow for considerable
exhaust from that 120mm fan sucking air in.
I
removed the “Warranty Void if Removed” sticker and
popped the top to take a look inside.
The
internals appear to be well thought out with a design towards
functionality rather than good looks. You can see the over sized
Heat Sinks that gather up the heat to let the fan then actively
cool it, which we all know active cooling is far superior to
passive. The design is overall simplistic yet functional thus
should allow for proper heat dissipation. A unit that is producing
to much heat is a unit that delivers dirty power.
The
one “knock” that could be attributed to the Asus Atlas
55GA is that it is not of modular design for the cables. Although
I have grown accustomed to and prefer modular cable solutions,
I did not find this to be much of an issue in my case (it is of
the larger variety however). It is curious with all of the “High
End” appeal Asus has put into the design of this unit, that
they would overlook the modularity piece of it. Conversely this
does of course reduce the number of failure points.
As
with most of you out there, I did have left over cables and
was forced to tuck them into the nooks and what not of my case.
Unfortunately one of these cables was not the 2nd power feed
for my SLI/CrossFire solution, leaving you to use a molex to
6 pin adapter on those high end solutions that require it.
As
to connectors that come with the unit, here is a full list:
-
4-
standard Molex branches for a total of 8 devices, 2 of those
branches have Floppy connectors.
-
2-
SATA specific branches giving connection for up to 4 devices
-
P8
to P4 and P8 to P8 (forward looking) for CPU supply
-
P6
connector for directly connecting your PCIe video card.
-
Main
Cable Connector 20+4
Test
Bed: Intel
640 (LGA775 / 3.2GHz), Asus P5WD2-E Premium, 1GB OCZ Platinum
PC2-5400, HIS X850XT IceQ II Turbo (External Power required),
Maxtor SATA-II (250GB, 7200RPM), Hitachi SATA (80GB 7200RPM),
AOpen DVD +/- R, Cooler Master Praetorian 720
A
check of the voltages at startup had everything well within tolerance
from within the BIOS.
Booting
of the system was without incident. Once I got into Windows I
proceeded to get as much going as possible to “warm her
up”. The Asus A-55GA, as with many of its competitors in
this space, sport near silent running. The fan adjusts automatically
as the heat inside the unit increases or decreases. At the warmest
I could get the PSU, I could not audibly hear the fan spinning
from my normal sitting position. Getting to the floor level with
the case, the large fan was inaudible over the Case / CPU fans.
Testing
I
will be testing the Asus A-55G while stressing the system with
as many applications as it can handle The programs I will run
to stress the PSU is 2 instances of folding (Hyper Threading)
while running BNR2 (not only CPU but NIC intensive) and letting
BenchemAll go through a battery of tests including Doom3, HL2
and Far Cry.
12v
Rail Left, Vcore right
Notice
the nice solid line on the 12V feed (actually 11.8V here, but
well within tolerance), this shows you that the 12V line is handling
the stress without variation, an important piece of information.
The Vcore, however, takes a slightly bumpier road, it does need
to be noted that the scale is much larger here in that I am actually
only seeing a deviation of 0.03V, I must say I would hope not
to see much more then that on my Vcore line.
Overclocking
Overclocking
is tremendously dependent on clean power, the Asus A-55G does
not shy away from this challenge, allowing me to obtain a 30%
increase in CPU speed to 4.16GHz. The Asus was as steadfast in
its power delivery at this level of OC as it was at stock speeds,
telling me that my PSU is not the limiting factor.
Final
Words
The
Asus
Atlas 55GA has a sexy stylish design overall which I think
many will like. Couple this with almost inaudible and efficient
cooling and that is a good basis off the bat. Support for ATX2.01
(and BTX Compatibility), 24 Pin power and P8 power are Modular
in design to maintain backwards compliance with ATX. Of course
Dual 12v rails help spread the load and you also get a 6 pin PCIe
power connector.
One item that I would have liked to have seen is a second 6 pin
PCIe power connector for SLI/Crossfire setups. With everything
you add to your system needing its own dedicated power source,
clean and abundant power is an ever increasing requirement in
today's enthusiasts solution. Add to that a requirement that the
power supply needs to be aesthetically pleasing and complimentary
to your current customizations, you list gets shorter with every
word I type. Luckily for you, and me, Asus
adds another viable power delivery solution that warrants a second
look as your PSU solution.
If
you have any questions or comments about this or other articles
here at Viperlair, feel
free to post in our Forums.
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