Introduction

We would like to thank Kingwin for supplying the review sample.

Kingwin's product range includes chassis, SATA enclosures, docking stations, cooling solutions and other accessories and finally Power Supply Units (PSUs). Unfortunately they are only active in the US market, at least for the time being, so you might not be aware of them. Today we have on our testbench the Kingwin Absolute Platinum 550W, which is produced by Super Flower, one of the most promising OEMs in today's market. Apparently Kingwin PSUs are exactly the same as Super Flower's retail units with only cosmetic differences. So far all PSUs under the Kingwin or Super Flower brand left our labs with a rare TPU Editor's Choice and this clearly shows their quality and top performance. Let's see if this will happen again, with the freshly released Kingwin Absolute Platinum 550W (AP-550).

Even nowadays, Platinum units still cost their weight not in Gold but in Platinum, so most of the users out there simply cannot afford them. Nevertheless, some companies are starting to realize this and taking into account the tough economic times we are facing, they try to turn the tide by stripping some unnecessary features to lower the final price. The Antec EarthWatts Platinum 650W was the first budget Platinum unit to hit the market. Antec even avoided the use of a modular cabling design, to restrict cost. Apparently modular cables significantly increase the production cost so Kingwin decided to follow the same road and released two affordable, non modular, Platinum units. The Absolute Platinum units come in two versions, with 550W and 750W capacities. In this review we will test the smaller of the two and see if it manages to score a high price/performance ratio.

Briefly, the Kingwin AP-550 has a single +12V rail which can deliver almost the total capacity of the unit, it is equipped with a 140mm fan with intelligent Auto Fan Speed Control and finally it is backed by a three year warranty. The most important of all, you can get all of the above plus the highly desired Platinum efficiency for $99.99.