Cougar GX-S 550 W Review

Name: Cougar GX-S 550 W
Brand: Cougar

crmaris

on Oct 6th, 2016,

in Power Supplies.

Manufacturer: Cougar

Protection Features Evaluation »

Ripple Measurements

You will see the ripple levels we measured on the rails of the GX-S550 in the following table. The limits are, according to the ATX specification, 120 mV (+12V) and 50 mV (5V, 3.3V, and 5VSB).

Ripple Measurements - Cougar GX-S550
Test	12 V	5 V	3.3 V	5VSB	Pass/Fail
10% Load	8.0 mV	10.4 mV	7.3 mV	8.2 mV	Pass
20% Load	12.4 mV	12.6 mV	8.6 mV	9.0 mV	Pass
30% Load	15.4 mV	14.4 mV	10.2 mV	12.0 mV	Pass
40% Load	18.6 mV	16.8 mV	11.4 mV	12.5 mV	Pass
50% Load	22.7 mV	19.4 mV	13.9 mV	15.0 mV	Pass
60% Load	27.3 mV	20.6 mV	14.8 mV	17.2 mV	Pass
70% Load	32.1 mV	21.9 mV	15.4 mV	19.4 mV	Pass
80% Load	38.1 mV	24.2 mV	17.5 mV	22.9 mV	Pass
90% Load	45.2 mV	25.7 mV	18.6 mV	24.0 mV	Pass
100% Load	54.3 mV	29.3 mV	22.1 mV	29.6 mV	Pass
110% Load	62.0 mV	34.5 mV	23.9 mV	32.5 mV	Pass
Crossload 1	16.6 mV	21.5 mV	13.5 mV	26.7 mV	Pass
Crossload 2	56.1 mV	22.5 mV	20.6 mV	17.9 mV	Pass

Ripple suppression is satisfactory for a unit of this price range. However, how long it will deliver such performance given a number of Teapo SC caps are used is uncertain. These caps have low ESR values and are, according to their manufacturer, suitable for switching power supplies, but their lifetime is limited compared to the caps we have come across in other, more expensive PSUs.

Ripple at Full Load

You can see the AC ripple and noise the main rails registered (+12V, 5V, 3.3V, and 5VSB) in the following oscilloscope screenshots. The bigger the fluctuations on the oscilloscope's screen, the bigger the ripple/noise. We set 0.01 V/Div (each vertical division/box equals 0.01 V) as the standard for all measurements.