Cooler Master MWE Gold Series 750W Power Supplies Review

Introduction

The power supply in a computer is arguably the most important part of any machine and requires careful consideration. If you go too cheap, you risk a short lifespan and an ending that often takes a large part of your system out with it. Go too expensive and you are getting features you’ll never use and an efficiency level that costs more than the power you’ll save over a lifetime of use. Don’t fret, there is a sweet spot somewhere in the middle and Cooler Master is here to show you what it looks like. Introducing the new MWE Gold series. The MWE Gold series delivers everything you expect from a top tier power supply like consistent 90% efficacy, quiet and cool operation, a powerful single rail design, and advanced circuitry for reliable and stable operation.

ProClockers would like to thank Cooler Master for sending the MWE Gold series Standard and fully-modular power supply over to check out!

Cooler Master’s take on the MWE Gold Series power supplies:

BE BOLD, POWER WITH GOLD

• 80 PLUS GOLD CERTIFIED
• 120MM LDB FAN
• ADVANCED CIRCUITRY
• FULLY MODULAR CABLING
• 5 YEAR WARRANTY

MWE Gold 750

The MWE Gold offers a highly efficient, affordable power solution. Enjoy reliable 90% efficiency with an 80 PLUS gold certification. Cooler Master’s design techniques ensure improved efficiency while maintaining low temperatures and quiet operation. Heat resistant components maintain gold level performance even at increased temperatures up to 45°C. A near quiet Silencio fan with an exclusive LDB bearing reduces noise and lasts longer than standard bearings. Flat and flexible cables improve airflow by reducing cable bulk. Enjoy gold rated power at an affordable price. Be bold, power with gold.

Fully-Modular MWE Gold 750

Behold the 80 Plus Gold rated, fully modular MWE Gold. This power supply unit delivers consistent 90% efficiency, low temperatures, and quiet operation. High quality, heat resistant components have been used to achieve gold level performance at temperatures up to 45°C. The Silencio fan and exclusive LDB bearing provides nearly silent cooling at no loss to system performance and a longer lifespan. Flat cables improve airflow by reducing cable bulk and a single +12V line ensures all components are fed the same stable output regardless of which cable you use. Be bold, power with gold.

Features & Specifications

Fully-Modular:

Non-Modular:

Specifications:

Packaging & Unboxing

MWE Gold 750

Cooler Master uses a simple black box for its MWE Gold series power supplies. An image of the power supply covers half of the box.

The top and bottom edges have only the model, capacity and Cooler Master logos.

One edge has all of the important specifications.

The back has some information about efficiency in several languages as well as a couple of charts showing fan curve under load as well as the efficiency curve over its load range.

The other short end of the box shows all of the power connectors on the power supply as well as the Regional power cord type included.

The bottom links to the Cooler Master website in many languages.

Inside the box under a sheet of protective foam, we find some paperwork, including a handy user guide that shows the pinout of each connector. Under this, the power supply is wrapped in a plastic bag with the cables bundled up next to it.

The DC cables are attached to the power supply. You get an AC power cord for your region, some mounting screws and the paperwork.

MWE Gold 750W Fully-Modular

Flipping over to the Fully Modular brother in the MWE Gold series, the box looks very similar, albeit slightly larger.

The top edge has the same model and logo but mentions this is the Fully-Modular version.

The specs on the side are pretty much exactly the same.

The efficiency and fan curves are identical.  

Even though this is fully modular, you get the exact same type and number of connectors as its non-modular brother.

The same link to Cooler Master’s website is here in tons of languages as well.

Inside, the same paperwork is here, but the power supply is now cradled in a large block of foam by itself. The assorted cables are next to it but not protected by foam.

You get mounting screws, paperwork, a regional power cord, and the modular cables are all bundled together in one blob with the exception of the main 24-pin.

A Closer Look

Short of a 20mm difference in length to account for the modular plug system, there isn’t much difference between the fully modular and non-modular units.

MWE Gold 750

Cooler Master’s MWE Gold power supplies have an aesthetically neutral white and black label with the Cooler Master Logo and series visible.

The rear of the PSU has the standard IEC-C14 power inlet and a power switch. The entire rear is vented for good cooling.

The other side has the information label. We see that this is a single rail design with all minor rails derived from the main 12V rail.

The top side is dominated by a large fan that takes up almost all of the PSU.

MWE Gold 750W Fully-Modular

The Fully Modular version of the MWE Gold 750 is 20mm longer but is otherwise identical. The Fully Modular design is reflected on the side label.

Outside of a slightly different part number, the specs are all the same between both models.

The same 120mm Silencio FP fan is used on modular and non-modular alike.

The rear panel looks a bit different on this version. The power switch is moved to the side of the plug and less of the rear panel is vented.

On the business end, we lose the single cutout with a pile of cables going out and trade them for the modular interface.  You get 2 plugs for the motherboard 24-pin, three for heavy 12V devices like CPU EPS connections and PCIe power, and four peripheral plugs for SATA and Molex type devices.

Cables:

Since both power supplies have the same length of cables, we’ll only cover this once.

The main 24-pin is rated at 610mm but retracts slightly due to the sleeving.

The CPU 8-pin (4+4 technically) is indeed right at 650mm, enough for all but the largest builds.

The pair of twin 6+2 PCIe cables have about 110mm between plugs and is about 590mm to the first set of connections. This could get a little short on cases with top mounted power supplies, but those are getting rare these days.

SATA and Peripheral cables are rated as 760mm to the furthest plug, and show around 100-110mm between plugs.

On the Inside

MWE Gold 750

The Insides of these two power supplies are nearly identical, so many of these shots will overlap both models. One perk of using a DC to DC design is it makes for a compact platform that only has to generate one main rail. Dropping from 12V to 5V and 3.3V doesn’t take much space. What this does do is give Cooler Master room to use good filtering for clean and stable power.

We see a significant amount of filtering done immediately at the AC inlet. We see two Y-caps and an X-cap, and an inline ferrite beat to suppress any high-frequency noise that makes it in on the cord.

A couple of chokes, and more Y and X-caps rounds out some impressive filtering.

Cooler Master’s 120mm Silencio FP fan provides everything from a gentle breeze to a minor hurricane of 2500 RPM.

The fan is rated 0.16A or just under 2 watts.

Wiring is nice and neat with each wire or bundle of wires being sleeved with the appropriate ATX color scheme and the spots on the board clearly labeled.

Soldering is nice and clean. We see some primary MOSFET on the bottom of the board, but they are not heatsinked to the case with thermal pads like some designs.

On the modular end, we see the exact same PCB but connected to a daughterboard with all of the modular power connections. Other than this, nothing else changes between the models.

Testing & Performance

CPU: Intel Core i9-9900k

Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix Z390-E

RAM: 32GB GeIL EVO Spear 3200Mhz

GPU: Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition

SSD: Samsung 960 PRO 2TB

OS: Windows 10 Professional X64

MWE Gold 750W (Non-Modular)

We’ll start out saying we aren’t equipped to do extremely detailed electrical analysis required to pick apart a modern power supply. It takes laboratory grade dedicated equipment so we’ll have to make do with some less precise testing.

While we normally use a good Fluke Digital Multi-meter, we’ve found the onboard monitoring solutions in modern motherboards to be quite accurate and able to be easily logged with utilities like HWiNFO.

Next, we’ll look at ripple on the rails with our Owon VDS-1022/I Digital USB Oscilloscope.

 The +12V rail under a stress test load registers a peak of 120mV peak to peak ripple.

 The 5-volt rails fairs about the same at around 120mV of ripple peak but also averages much lower.

The 3.3V rail does a decent job with 160mV of ripple. Modern systems typically put very little load on the 3.3V rail.
 

MWE Gold 750W Fully Modular

While we normally use a good Fluke Digital Multi-meter, we’ve found the onboard monitoring solutions in modern motherboards to be quite accurate and able to be easily logged with utilities like HWiNFO.

Next, we’ll look at ripple on the rails with our Owon VDS-1022/I Digital USB Oscilloscope.

 The +12V rail under a stress test load registers a peak of 160mV peak to peak ripple. While not the best on the market, this is a good result.

 The 5-volt rails fairs about the same at around 160mV of ripple peak but also averages much lower.

The 3.3V rail does a great job with only 160mV of ripple. This is really pushing the limits of what our lower cost O-scope can even pick up. Modern systems typically put very little load on the 3.3V rail.

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

Cooler Master’s MWE Gold Series 750 power supplies pack quite a punch to everything but your wallet. Build quality looks to be solid, lending credit to the 5-year warranty. Voltage regulation was solid and ripple control was more than decent. The fan never did get very loud in our testing, but running this near full capacity in a hot environment could push that 2500 RPM into an audible range, so keep that in mind.

Cable quality is really nice, but we wish the 24-pin plug would use the same flat cables as the rest rather than the sleeved setup it comes with. It’s a very minor gripe, but it does give the cable some memory that is hard to train out and it does look different from the rest. The Fully Modular version is going for right at $100 USD at the time of this writing, and the non-modular coming in about $10 less so value is certainly right where it should be for the market.

Great job Cooler Master!