Cooler master selling inferior quality power supply in India & ripping us. MWE V2 BRONZE

[Case maker]

When the cooler master mwe v2 bronze launched, everyone praised for its performance & reliability. Reviewers like Aris from "Hardware Busters international" recommended it. Its a modern platform with DC-DC converters & LLC. (Note - psu tier list is not true about this unit about the ripple issue. In fact this unit has pretty good ripple suppression for the price).

 

This unit gets the recommendation because of the components inside it. We can't say the same about indian version. One of the Indian YT reviewer, "pc bolt" teardown this unit. In short, global version has 'Elite' capacitors on the primary side when Indian unit has, Capxcon. Although global version has Capxcon on the secondary side, it use many polymer caps too. But indian version has no polymer caps at all. Maybe this entire design is garbage. They advertise one thing, then sell completly different thing. Who knows which other companies doing the same?

 

Im not a professional but I know that this is not ethical. Cooler master knows we don't have professional power supply reviewers. We are getting ripped off. We buy it thinking we get the same performance as the reviewers say. Please guys, share images if you have this unit. Share your thoughts. 

[Zando_]

Is there a performance difference vs the 'Elite' caps vs Capxcon? Swapping components is pretty common in the PC industry for various supply chain reasons. If you do it like ADATA has for some SSDs and make a worse performing unit, then that's bad. If you do it like Samsung with the 970 Evo Plus and it performs the same, then it's a non-issue. Cooler Master could be using different caps for supply/manufacturing reasons, unless they perform worse then there's no need to call foul play.

[mariushm]

I wouldn't say changing the primary capacitor is a big deal, and in this particular case Elite is probably better than Capxon for a primary capacitor.

The big higher voltage capacitor is subjected to less "stress" compared to the secondary ones, it heats less, it has bigger surface so the fan can cool it down easier.

 

As for lack of polymer capacitors on secondary side, I don't know. I'd first check if it's the same model number and revision. But it's not uncommon for some manufacturers to have Indian models (for example on phones they may use cheaper processor, or a cheaper audio codec)

 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

26 minutes ago, Case maker said:

They advertise one thing, then sell completly different thing. Who knows which other companies doing the same?

What you haven't heard of the 5000 flavours Nvidia GT1030? 

[seon123]

You do realise PSUs aren't just a box with capacitors, right...? 

51 minutes ago, Case maker said:

They advertise one thing, then sell completly different thing.

Where do they advertise Capxon polymer caps?

[Guest]

54 minutes ago, Case maker said:

When the cooler master mwe v2 bronze launched, everyone praised for its performance & reliability. Reviewers like Aris from "Hardware Busters international" recommended it. Its a modern platform with DC-DC converters & LLC. (Note - psu tier list is not true about this unit about the ripple issue. In fact this unit has pretty good ripple suppression for the price).

 

This unit gets the recommendation because of the components inside it. We can't say the same about indian version. One of the Indian YT reviewer, "pc bolt" teardown this unit. In short, global version has 'Elite' capacitors on the primary side when Indian unit has, Capxcon. Although global version has Capxcon on the secondary side, it use many polymer caps too. But indian version has no polymer caps at all. Maybe this entire design is garbage. They advertise one thing, then sell completly different thing. Who knows which other companies doing the same?

 

Im not a professional but I know that this is not ethical. Cooler master knows we don't have professional power supply reviewers. We are getting ripped off. We buy it thinking we get the same performance as the reviewers say. Please guys, share images if you have this unit. Share your thoughts. 

Is the actual part number different?  

 

Example:  The reviewed MWE V2 Bronze has a part number of MPE-6501-ACAAB.

 

What's yours?

[Case maker]

31 minutes ago, seon123 said:

You do realise PSUs aren't just a box with capacitors, right...? 

My apologies. I didn't wanted to sound too technical or too complicated. That's why I only mention it. Its not just the caps. According to that video everything is lower tier cutdown.

[Spotty]

There's different versions of the MWE V2. There's a full range model and a 230V only model. If it's being sold in India it might be the 230V model MPE-6501-ACABW-B.

[Case maker]

26 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

Is the actual part number different?  

 

Example:  The reviewed MWE V2 Bronze has a part number of MPE-6501-ACAAB.

 

What's yours?

Its not mine, I saw it on YT.

model - MPE-6501-ACABW-BIN

[Spotty]

Just now, Case maker said:

Its not mine, I saw it on YT.

model - MPE-6501-ACABW-BIN

That's the 230V version.

 

If this is the video you are talking about it's the MWE Bronzez V2 230V model. Different than the unit tested by Hardware Busters.

 

Not that it necessarily matters if they change the brand of capacitor in a power supply. They might change depending on availability. As long as it meets the requirements it's usually not an issue. Changing a Rubycon 105C cap to a CapXon 85C would be a problem. Changing a Rubycon 105C to an equivalent Nichicon 105C probably wouldn't be a problem.

[Case maker]

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

I wouldn't say changing the primary capacitor is a big deal, and in this particular case Elite is probably better than Capxon for a primary capacitor.

The big higher voltage capacitor is subjected to less "stress" compared to the secondary ones, it heats less, it has bigger surface so the fan can cool it down easier.

 

As for lack of polymer capacitors on secondary side, I don't know. I'd first check if it's the same model number and revision. But it's not uncommon for some manufacturers to have Indian models (for example on phones they may use cheaper processor, or a cheaper audio codec)

 

model - MPE-6501-ACABW-BIN

 

"Don't cheap out on power supply", that's the saying. If the company is putting inferior components in different countries, then power supply reviews has no meaning. Who knows if they doing the same thing on their top models? Is this even right? Don't take me wrong, power supply determine the life of the pc. phone manufacturers & power supply manufacturers are not a good comparison.

[seon123]

20 minutes ago, Case maker said:

My apologies. I didn't wanted to sound too technical or too complicated. That's why I only mention it. Its not just the caps. According to that video everything is lower tier cutdown.

Why would you mention just the caps? Focusing on the less important parts with the excuse of not making it too complicated just shows us how clueless you are. 

3 minutes ago, Case maker said:

If the company is putting inferior components in different countries, then power supply reviews has no meaning.

It's very common to have a variable BOM, to not use the exact same components. And that's fine, as long as they're not significant downgrades. 

[mariushm]

3 minutes ago, Case maker said:

model - MPE-6501-ACABW-BIN

 

"Don't cheap out on power supply", that's the saying. If the company is putting inferior components in different countries, then power supply reviews has no meaning. Who knows if they doing the same thing on their top models? Is this even right? Don't take me wrong, power supply determine the life of the pc. phone manufacturers & power supply manufacturers are not a good comparison.

Dude, it's complicated.  On one hand, I agree that it's not ideal, that the model numbers are too similar, but overall I think it's good for the people in India to have such models. 

 

They took a wide input voltage model and they made it 230v only, which means they were able to use cheaper components in the Active PFC circuit (because boosting 110v to 400v is harder than boost 230v to 400v, beefier components are required for 110-230v), the primary capacitor may also not need to be that good performance, and they've made some cuts in other places to bring the price down and make it more affordable for people in India. 

 

If it's a choice between Indian people buying shitty no-name crap that says 600w but actually can barely do 350w, and a cut down Cooler Master psu, I'd rather go with that Cooler Master.

 

Every time I check a review, I then look at the full model for that power supply .... for example on Amazon I look down at the SKU and the model code and then also check the pictures of the item (though the seller may reuse pictures for multiple such sub-models)

 

[Case maker]

To be clear I'm not hear to argue. I don't have a clue on how these things work. I just wanted to let everyone know what these companies does. If anyone has a spare unit they don't need, it would be helpful if they could send it to the hardware Busters team for review. I actually asked aris, he said he would review it if he gets a unit.

[Case maker]

8 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Every time I check a review, I then look at the full model for that power supply .... for example on Amazon I look down at the SKU and the model code and then also check the pictures of the item (though the seller may reuse pictures for multiple such sub-models)

well the Amazon Indian pictures are the same as the global version. In fact there is not a single image of the Indian version anywhere.

[Case maker]

Maybe I was a bit sceptical. Without somebody pointing it out companies will screw us. Thankyou all for the fast response. You guys are pretty good. I really appreciate it