Specifications

Efficiency is Gold and Enhance insists on restricting the maximum operating temperature of their implementations to 40°C on paper, but all Enhance units we tested over the last couple months also worked flawlessly at much higher ambient.

This unit comes equipped with all protection features, including OTP (Over Temperature Protection), which can save the unit if anything goes wrong with the cooling fan and operating temperatures are way too high. The fan cooling down this PSU has a 120 mm diameter and uses ball-bearings, so it will last for quite a long time. The problem is that ball-bearing fans are noisier than FDB or sleeve-bearing ones, but CM solves its noise-output problem with an appropriately tuned fan-control circuit.

The dimensions of the V550S are compact, since it is only 14 cm long, so it will fit into every normal case. The warranty is also set at five years, a long enough period for a product of this category, and the price looks decent for its advertised features.

The single +12V rail is strong enough with 45 A max current output. It will easily support the only two PCIe connectors. The minor rails have enough power, and the 5VSB rail can deliver the typical 12.5 W.

Cables & Connectors, Power Distribution

All connectors are long enough, since this unit probably won't be installed into a big case, and the distance among all connectors is good. We do think that the single +12V rail could easily handle a pair of additional PCIe connectors, especially since only one EPS connector is present. There may not appear to be enough SATA connectors at first, but this is only a 550W unit, so we can't expect it to come with connectors in the double digits. However, the good news is that attaching all the modular cables still leaves you with one spare socket on the modular PCB, which would allow you to purchase a suitable SATA cable to easily increase this PSU's SATA count. The same goes for 4-pin Molex connectors, of course. Finally, most gauges of the 24-pin ATX connector and those comprising both EPS and PCIe connectors are 16AWG, while all other modular connectors use the standard 18AWG wires recommended by the ATX spec.

Since this PSU features a single +12V rail, we do not have anything to comment on about its power distribution.