P4 Aux and P8 Aux power is catered for by a single cable sporting both connector types.

And that's your lot. Well not quite. Hiper also supply exTender cables. This is not a new feature but something we have come across before with Hiper PSU's and it's nice to see it being used here once again. It's a sort of best of both worlds approach to modular cabling.

Now I just want to make a point here that the SATA exTender is not quite as good as it could be, although for right now at least it won't be a problem. At some point, SATA drives will require 3.3V power; when? Who knows, could be tomorrow, could be never. The exTender's currently don't support 3.3V for SATA. That said, Hiper are usually pretty quick to come up with a solution to this sort of issue, should it ever become a problem. It's not a bad point right now, but I'm including the information in the review just for the sake of being complete.

The other thing I want to point out, and something that the manual makes very clear, is that you can't just start attaching exTenders as you see fit. There are a couple of rules to follow, which is basically no more than three optical or HDD's should be attached to a single cable.

Hiper exTender Hiperlink Packs

Now I'm going to diverse here to another product of Hiper's, one that is directly related to this PSU review. See, while Hiper have supplied plenty of cabling and exTenders to cater for any average enthusiast no nonsense rig, that doesn't mean they don't know that you could have unique requirements for different devices. Enter (sold separately) Hiper exTender Hiperlink packs.

These packs give you extra exTenders for your PSU, any PSU really. As long as you do the math and keep the devices on one cable within specification, then there is no reason you couldn't use these on a non-Hiper PSU.

Anyway, Hiper sent us four sample packs; 2 molex to PCI-E/2 pcs, molex to 2 SATA/2 pcs, 2 molex + P4 to P8/1pc and molex to 2 molex/2 pcs.

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled review and when we left off we were near to installing the unit and getting some hard numbers.

Testing

Testing a PSU is quite a difficult affair really, as the one big item we can't test is how long will the PSU last? I'm pretty sure Hiper (and any other manufacturer for that matter) might be upset if I told them their review could take up to 5 years, so let's move onto idle and load voltages. Raising the outside temperature can also put additional strain on a PSU; the hotter a PSU is, the less efficient it is, so to help us get outside numbers we also do everything we can to keep the temperatures high.

For load testing, as many devices as possible were attached to the unit and used all at once. In the case of the Hiper PSU, it is also capable of running 4 Graphics cards. I'd love to say I have a Quad SLI setup, but I don't so I had to do some creative and unusual testing. To aid in the load numbers, the PSU was also plugged into two other graphic cards running (each was 3dMark benchmarking to load the card) in other machines, hence the list below has 3 graphics cards.

Test Setup: AMD X2 3800+ (overclocked to 2380MHz), MSI K8N Diamond Plus, 2x Corsair 512 Pro, 2x 512 Corsair PC4000, HIS X1800GTO, ATI X1800XT AiW, Nvidia 7900GT, asetek Watercooling with 12v waterpump (6x 120mm fans), 2x Optical, 4x HDD's

Additional Devices: USB Mouse, USB Keyboard, USB Webcam (running in Messenger), Nexus Fan and Light controller (2x 120mm Fans, 1x 80mm Fan, 2x Cold Cathodes – all on and highest settings) USB powered Scanner (scanning), 12v Powered LCD, Floppy Drive (formatting), PCI TV Card (WinTV running).

A Multimeter was used to get the voltages.

Final Words

The Hiper HPU-4M730 is designed to be a no nonsense, all business, Quad SLI capable PSU that won't break the bank, and it would seem that Hiper have succeeded. While no one is saying a PC that needs 730Watts of power is great for the environment, Hiper have also done their bit for the green team and kept the packaging to a minimum as well as used recycled cardboard for the box. RoHS compliance rounds out the green side of things.

The not so green side is the 730Watts of power this PSU seems more than capable of dishing out, but it is over 80% efficient. From a numbers point of view, the voltages remained high with little fluctuation under a moderately heavy load. All of the voltages were above specification but within ATX tolerances which should aid the overclockers amongst us.

Modular cabling is nice, but one argument is that it provides multiple points of failure. Hipers exTenders give a best of both worlds, allowing you the freedom of modular cables attached to fixed cabling. There is enough cabling and extenders supplied to power 17 devices including 4 PCIe graphics cards. If this isn't enough, then you can always buy more exTenders via Hipers Hiperlink packs which also include free Travelpacks for your spare cabling. Incidentally, the Hiperlink packs can be used with pretty much any PSU, but remember to do the math and not overload the rails on your PSU.

Support is limited to more modern desktop systems. P4 Aux and P8 are both supported but only 24pin ATX motherboards. I can't see many older systems that use 20pin power requiring 730Watt PSU's so this is a very limited 'bad' point. Another thing to keep in mind is the size of the PSU which is an average 1.5” longer than most other PSU's.

The Hiper HPU-4M730 represents a balanced, no nonsense approach to large power; you get 730Watts, partially modular cabling, silent cooling and a not so large price tag (under £95 UK / $140 US). Great Features, Great Value, Great Product.

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