Hiper Type-R Modular 580W

So, is this PSU with 580W, modular cables, nice design and good performance worth 1000 SEK? In this case, I say yes. If you want a PSU that isn’t extremely styled, but still attracts a few glances, performs very well and is relatively quiet, then you should pick this PSU without any pondering.

With all new components and accessories for the computer, the power supply has a central role, and always had. A coffee cup heater on the USB port draws power as well as a pair of graphic cards in SLI draws power. They only draw different amount of power. The latter draws enormous amount of power and today, a small power supply manufactured in the 19’th century won’t be a sufficient power source. In terms of effect, a power supply of today compared with an older one is like day and night. Functions like over/under voltage protection, over current protection, short circuit protection are some of the safety functions found in a power supply today, and the list could be longer. Now, when all functions are available, the power supply needs to reach a new level, so to speak. To reach that level, the manufacturers create a value of ownership for their customers. UV reactive cables, an extra fan are two things that make a power supply worth owning and these two things should not be underestimated. A high quality power supply with a pretty look can be bought and there may be an extra fan included in the purchase. The sad thing with a power supply today is that with higher power, you get more cables. An open computer chassis could be like a snakes nest, and the only thing you see is cables. The large manufacturers of computers have solved this problem by creating just as much cables as they need for that specific chassis the power supply should reside in. Things are more complicated for all of us that don’t buy a prefabricated computer from Dell or HP, as there are almost as many computer setups as there are computers.

But there are now solutions available for us too. One of them is Hiper Type-R Modular 580W. This power supply is a nice solution to the snakes nest in the computer chassis, as it has removable cables. Type-R Modular 580W is an upgraded version of the Type-R 480W which we have reviewed earlier here at Nordichardware, and you may find it here.

A solution of to many lose cables sounds nice, doesn’t it? Welcome in and let me then show you how a solution like this could look.

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Specification
Voltage/Current
+3.3VDC	32A
+5VDC	36A
+12VDC	20A
+12VDC (ATX12V)	18A
-5VDC	–
-12VDC	0.8A
+5VSB	2.5A
Maximum load	560W
Maximum load +3.3V & +5V	280W
Connectors
Molex connectors	0-8
Floppy connectors	0-1
Serial ATA	0-4
Other connectors	ATX12V, PCI-E
Other specifications
Fans	2 pcs, 120mm and 80mm
Certifications	UL, CUL, VDE, SEMKO, DEMKO, NEMKO, FINKO, CE och CB
Other	Gold plated connectors, power cable
Warranty	3 years
Price	ca 1000 SEK

Type-R Modular 580W comes in Hipers somewhat famous “lunch
box”. Not only had the power supply got new details, they upgraded the
lunch box too. The box now has hinges, and is suitable for storing, for
example, tools when the power supply is installed in the chassis. Some type of
recycling, so to speak.

In the name of the power supply, Type-R Modular 580W, we find that we
could utilize 580 Watts and that is not a small amount of power. A typical
computer configuration of today has a power consumption of about 150-400 Watts.
The other word in the name of the power supply, Modular, tells us that it has
modular cabling. Cables that can be plugged or unplugged whenever we need them.
If you need cables for two SATA hard drives and a PCI-E graphic card, you only
need to plug corresponding cables into the power supply. Easy, isn’t it?
No, not really that easy as there is a small catch with that configuration. The
contacts for SATA only exists as power thieves for the Molex cables so the real
setup of cables you need is one cable for the PCI-E, one Molex cable and one SATA
power thief for the Molex cable. But this setup is still far better than the
old fashion way with a lot of tangling cables in the chassis.

Type-R Modular 580W is just like it’s predecessor, Type-R 480W,
following the standard ATX revision 2.2. You find all about this standard here,
and what it means regarding the power supply. I should mention that according
to ATX 2.2, the -5V is a voltage rail is voluntary choice to include in the ATX
contact. Hiper chooses not to include that voltage rail in their power supply
and owners of, for example, MSI motherboards should be informed of that before
the purchase a power supply with a ATX 2.2 revision as those motherboards needs
the -5V rail to function properly.

The power supply is very well packed and all cables are packed in plastic
bags. Nothing seems, at the first glance, to have been overlooked.

The color of the power supply is ranging from baby blue to deep azur
blue, depending of what angle you look at it. Therefore, the pictures
don’t give the color full justice. I call it blue as I then cover both
baby blue and azur blue. It is anyway a very nice blue color but the power
supply should be handled with care as it will be covered with fingerprints if
you don’t wear a pair of cotton gloves. A wish is that they shipped a
pair of cotton gloves along with the power supply. It may sound finicky, but
the finish of the paint is so high that it could make an auto paint shop turn
green with envy. Therefore, a pair of white cotton gloves would be a welcome
accessory in the lunch box.

The 24->20 pin adapter is now discarded for a new, better choice. You
remove a part of the contact and there you have the old fashioned ATX 2.03
contact. The new solution is a very clever choice to make as you avoid two
contact transitions.

The ATX cable can not be unplugged as the other cables. In my opinion,
that’s a good thing as it should never be unplugged, ever. Today, there
are some power supplies with such a choice but the question is, why would you
like to do that. I see no reason to that and Hiper is thinking the same as me. Further
on, we see the six sockets for SATA, Molex, Floppy and the PCI-E contacts. Those
sockets have a type of screw engagement, where you plug in the cable and tighten
the screw ring. When the ring is tightened, the connections is secured against poor
connection and such. The sleeving of the cables is dark blue, but they appear as
bright blue on the picture above.

The Molex contact utilze the Ez-Grip technique, the innovation that I appreciated
in the review of the Type-R 480W. This
simple but smart design makes all unplugging into a sweet dream. Squeeze on both sides of the contact and it will push itself out of the unit it has
resided in, simple and smart. Almost everyone has at least one time tried to
unplug a Molex cable that is seated and it won’t budge. You try to pull the
Molex by it’s cables as the contact is to small to get a good grip
around, then wondered how much longer it would take before you have the cables
in your hand and the contact is still in the unit. That problem is now solved
with Ez-Grip.

This is the appearance of the power supply with all cables armed. To me,
it looks very elegant and far from the tangling cables we are used to. Let us
now see how this blue beauty perform in our test bench.

Our tests are performed in two parts, one low-power test and one high-power test. The PSU runs for about 30 minutes with an opening low-power test followed by a high-power test.
During the low-power test, the three main voltages (+3.3V, +5V and +12V) are put under a load of about 1 Ampere. This is to see how the PSU works when “idling”.

During the high-power test, the three voltages are put under maximum load, to see if the PSU can hold the voltages and ripple within the threshold values. That is to see if the PSU can keep its promises.
During both tests the voltages and ripple are measured continuously. The second part is done in a regular computer. Well, let’s see how the power supply performs in our test bench.

The Hiper Type-R Modular 580W has no problems what so ever with the low effect test, which otherwise, would be strange. The small amount of power we utilize makes the power supply almost silent. The fans are spinning at lowest possible rpm and all the voltages are above the respective specification value. Nothing strange appears here. With that said, we head on to our high power part of the test, where we “burn” our 580 Watts of power. 580 W is not really a truth as we only use 560 of those Watts as -12 V and 5 V FSB is included into the total amount of power we may use.

Thirty minutes into the high power test, the fans are spinning at their maximum rpm and that makes the power supply a lot noisier. The noise is still far from irritating, but I wouldn’t call it silent now. The power supply is not hot but slightly above lukewarm. All voltage rails have dropped a bit and in some cases a lot. The 3.3 voltage rail is now close to the tolerance boundary. It’s close but not dangerously close. The both 12 voltage rails behave slightly different where 12V1 have dropped more than 12V2. The 5 volt rail is best performing and is still above the specification value. All four rails are still within their respective tolerances, with the 3.3 voltage rail closest to its boundary. But everyone should have in mind that we utilize the maximum power now, and almost no user today have a computer configuration with that power consumption.

When it comes to ripple, I have almost nothing to say and let the diagrams speak for themselves. The numbers presented here are good, very good. None of the rails even come close to their tolerances.

Type-R Modular 580W is a power supply with, should I say, some indecisive characteristics. In the high power test, we got a voltage drop, yes. What we also would be able to see is an increasing ripple on the rails, but we don’t. They are still far from the tolerances. With this new knowledge we head on to the computer test before we can present our final verdict.

The test system is based on an Athlon socket 754 motherboard, over clocked to 2.2 Ghz. Two hard drives and a budget rated graphics card constitute as the kernel of our test system. Because we don’t want our CPU to show any strange results, “Cool ‘n Quiet” has been turned off.

According to our measurements, the voltages are really stabile and don’t change much. The voltages stay within the threshold values with a good margin. The PSU is really quiet and cool. The fans spin just above the lowest rpm and perform their job really well. There is nothing negative to say about this, because the PSU performs just as it should, quiet and with ease.

With its Type-R Modular 580W, Hiper has managed to take everything positive from its predecessor in the Type-R-series. They’ve added 100W, fixed modular cables and furthermore packaged it in one of the somewhat famous lunchboxes that is soon to be considered as a trademark for well-performing PSU’s from Hiper. If Hiper continues with this trend, the packaging will soon be legendary, because you know that the box contains a PSU with great performance.

The Type-R-series is intended to be front edge when it comes to PSU’s and Hiper actually goes from strength to strength when it comes to this series. It seems that Hiper listens to the market and then adjusts the PSU:s according to what the consumers want. Innovation and design are starting to take market shares, and there is nothing wrong with that. If I today would have presented a 580W PSU without modular cables and nice design, would it still have been interesting? Maybe, maybe not.

As we approach the final conclusion and it’s time to summarize what we have seen, heard and felt, I can not find anything that can be classified as negative. My request of e.g. white cotton gloves is just that, a request.

So, is this PSU with 580W, modular cables, nice design and good performance worth 1000 SEK? In this case, I say yes. If you want a PSU that isn’t extremely styled, but still attracts a few glances, performs very well and is relatively quiet, then you should pick this PSU without any pondering.

Hiper Type-R Modular 580W

Pros:
+ 3 year warranty
+ ATX 2.2 Specification
+ Modular cables
+ Stable voltages
+ Silent

Cons:
None really

Hiper has succeeded well with its Type-R-series and with this PSU they have shown that you can further develop a product that is already good. With more effect, modular cables and a relatively good price, Type-R modular 580W is a very good choice. With these words, I would like to give this PSU our award, Editor’s Choice.