Introduction

We would like to thank Cooler Master for supplying the review sample.

The PSU market is a tough one since you can lose the good reputation you build up over many years in a very short time; only a bad or simply not terribly worthwhile PSU line suffices. Cooler Master in fact didn't have a significant presence in especially the high-end PSU categories until a very short while ago since their products utilized older or low to mid-performance platforms. Mostly due to their adhesion to a single OEM, Enhance, and the reluctance to risk picking another OEM that probably would offer them much better platforms to work with, everything changed with the release of the V series putting them back on the map. More and more users are now picking CM PSUs over the high-end competition that ruled this area for quite a long time. But their successful presence in these high-end categories is just the start as the real game is played in lower ones. Both CM's technology and marketing department are aware of these circumstance and have decided to release the GM line, an affordable line for budget-oriented users.

Today, we will test the G550M unit which, as its model number implies, has a capacity of 550 W and exploits a semi-modular cabling design. It is also 80 Plus Bronze certified, has a single +12V rail which, according to CM, can even feed an Nvidia Titan, and is Haswell ready because of the DC-DC converters it uses for the generation of the minor rails. Another very interesting feature of the G550M is its extra-long warranty of five years. The warranty period in this price range usually doesn’t exceed three years, but CM didn’t adhere to those guidelines since they believe in this platform's reliability.