In Win Commander 1200W PSU Review

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Product: Commander 1200W
Manufacturer: In Win
Supplied by: In Win
Price: 319USD/RM1140
Launch Date: NA

If you are looking for a high power PSU but 1500W is out of your budget then you may interest with a 1000W or 1200W PSU. Today we will bring you a 1200W PSU from In Win; Commander 1200W which is a high end PSU from In Win and targeting for gaming market with its supportability for dual/quad core processor, NVIDIA SLI, ATI Crossfire and etc hardcore hardware. Let have a deep look on this PSU.

Company Profile

IN-WIN Development Inc., an ISO 9001 manufacturer of professional computer chassis, power supplies and digital storage devices, is the leading provider of enclosure solutions to system integrators worldwide. Founded in 1986, IN-WIN provides high quality chassis that conform to all safety regulations, as well as unsurpassed customer service.

In Win was well trained to become a top-notch manufacturer of core technology to enhance internal core competence to meet what customer and market needs constantly. Top Management has been executed four major elements to reach our growing goal: Innovation, Service, Speed, Value, Safety, Warmth, Faithful, Diligence in order to remain our leading edge position and differentiate with other players.

Features

■ Supports NVIDIA SLI & Quad SLI and All Multi-Core GPU Technologies
■ High Efficiency up to 88%
■ Modularized Cable Management System
■ 8(6+2) Pin & 6 Pin(1200W / 1500W only) PCI-E Connectors for Multi-GPU Graphic Cards
■ Four Independent +12V Rails
■ Silent 14cm Double Ball-Bearing Fan
■ Patented 4 Pin Molex Connectors
■ Intelligent Fan Speed Control for Optimal Acoustic
■ Active Power Factor Correction (PF>0.99)
■ Supports ATX 12V 2.3/ EPS 12V 2.91
■ MTBF>120,000 Hours
■ Independent Voltage Circuit
■ Protections: Over Current, Over Voltage, Over Power,Under Voltage and Short Circuit Protections
■ Japanese Industrial Grade Components (Capacitor, etc.)

Specifications

The rest of the detail specification of the In Win Commander 1200W, you may refer to here -> LINK

Native Cable

1 x 20+4-pin ATX
1 x 4+4-pin EPS12V
1 x 8-pin EPS12V

Modular Cables

3 x 6-pin PCI-E
3 x 8-pin PCI-E
2 x SATA power cables with four connectors
2 x Molex power cables with four connectors + 1 x FDD

Package & Contents

In Win Commander 1200W is packed very nicely with a big army theme packaging box; if you do not check carefully you won't notice that this is a PSU. At the bottom of the box, there are some features and specification of this PSU but all of these will be much nicer by using more attractive color, wording, bigger font size as they are a bit blur for us.

Some special features are stated on the side of the packaging box with its logo likes 3-year warranty, low noise, modular cables and etc. Commander 1200W is placed very secure inside the packaging box with two foams and the rest of the accessories are seated very neatly as well.

Besides the PSU itself of In Win Commander 1200W, the rest of the accessories are power cord, user's manual, four screws, cable ties, cable bag, PSU bag and a bag of modular cables. PSU and cable bags are something new to us as we won't see these for most of the PSU even those very popular and expensive; it is good that In Win think ahead further to consider what else customers need besides the standard bundle.

The user's manual basically is a very detail specification of In Win Commander 1200W with Multilanguage. With the army theme and due to the font size is pretty small for the user's manual, users may need to be more concentrate while reading it but most of the people do not really care about the user's manual as long as the PSU is working fine. The black cable bag is for users to store those unused cables especially if you need to carry them during lan party.

It is good to see In Win includes a white bag for users to keep the PSU without collecting dust. However we wonder how many people will keep the PSU inside this bag as most of the users will fully utilize such high end PSU unless for those are planning to join some events such as overclocking competition then this bag serve the purpose.

In WIn Commander 1200W

In Win Commander 1200W has total quad +12V rails which has additional two more rails than normal PSU. Quad rails will always better than dual rails because the loads will be shared more evenly and system will be more stable especially during high load. +12V1/2 rails of In Win Commander 1200W can support up to 20A which are for peripherals and CPU while +12V3/4 rails can support up to 36A which are mainly used for high end graphic cards.

Here are the exterior looks of In Win Commander 1200W where the whole PSU unit is in green color with some yellow wording and logos on it. In Win Commander 1200W will be very nice and attractive especially pair with a transparent or side window casing. Commander series PSU are most high end PSU from In Win where it has total five models at this moment; 650W, 750W, 850W, 1200W and 1500W. Those non KW PSU are having standard PSU casing size while 1200W and 1500W are having longer length with 200mm (standard is 160mm). Since In Win Commander 1200W has bigger PSU casing, it will not able fit in some small or slim casing.

Same with other branded PSU, In Win Commander 1200W also comes with honey type of ventilation holes which is better for air flow dissipation. In Win Commander 1200W comes with a big red LED switch which will be lighted up when the PSU is on. For the cooling portion, In Win uses 14CM fan to maximize the cooling as 1200W will definitely generate quite huge amount of heat.

In Win Commander 1200W is a modular PSU which is one of the important features that users are looking for nowadays as it allows users to have better inner case air flow and cable management. Most of the PSU manufacturers will not have lids for their modular PSU connectors but In Win has included this to cover all the connectors which is good as most of the time users will not fully utilizes all these connectors and it is better to get something to cover it to avoid any short circuit by something else accidentally.

In Win Commander 1200W is sleeved with black sleeving for all the native and modular cables. However the cable sleeving can be further improved by sleeving the native cables completely till inside of the PSU casing. Although In Win Commander 1200W is a modular PSU but it still has some native cables; 20+4-pin ATX, 4+4-pin EPS12V and 8-pin EPS12V which are 100% required to power up a system. For 1500W model, it will have another native cable with 8+6-pin PCI-E cable.

For the modular cables of In Win Commander 1200W, there are total ten cables with it; 3 x 6-pin PCI-E, 3 x 8-pins PCI-E, 2 x SATA power and 2 x Molex power with FDD connectors. These modular cables are long enough even for a tower casing too. For the exact cable length, you may refer back to the link that we have provided previously in specifications section.

In Win Commander 1200W has something better than other modular PSU where there is connector indications at the PSU itself and on modular cables too. For the PSU modular connectors, there are color indications to let users to do the cable connection easily; black for Molex & SATA, blue for +12V4 rail and red for +12V3 rail. Besides the color indication, the modular cable itself has the label indication to show users whether which end should be connected to PSU or the hardware.

As we mentioned before 140mm fan is used for In Win Commander 1200W and it is from YATE LOON Electronics; D14BH-12. This fan is able to generate 140CFM air flow but it also generate 48.5dB noise as well. However In Win Commander 1200W is equipped with intelligent fan speed control where during 50% loading, it will only have around 16dB noise and we believe most of the time users will not stress their system at 100% all the time so noise will be a small matter here.

Here the inner view of In Win Commander 1200W and don't so surprises if you think you have seen such PSU inner structure before as most of the PSU are made by few OEM manufacturers just like notebook industry. Understand from In Win that this Series of PSU are manufactured by another OEM PSU manufacturer but the design and concept are still comes from In Win where they are involved for all kind of activities including quality control as well.

Basically In Win Commander 1200W is constructed by two 600W PSU where you can see there are two set of components inside the PSU; two separated active PFC circuits. The copper color heatsinks look pretty small but it has impressive and huge amount of fins which should work very well with the 140CFM fan. In Win uses Japanese Industrial Grade Components such as capacitor which are better quality, performance and last longer as well.

Installation, Testing & Performance

In Win Commander 1200W PSU installation is nothing unique compare with other PSU but users need to ensure that their casing is able to fit in this 200mm length PSU but most of the standard ATX casing should have no problem with it unless it get blocked by the optical drive. For the modular cables, besides using the native cables we have added three more modular cables in order to power up our rig; one cable each of 6-pin PCI-E, Molex and SATA.

Test Bed
Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 @ 2.83GHz
Motherboard : Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3
Heatsink : Gelid Solution Silent Spirit
Memory : 4GB 800MHz DDR2 Memory
Hard Drive : 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Seagate
Graphic Card : OEM Nvidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB
PSU : In Win Commander 1200W
Optical Drive : DVD RW HLDS
Operating System : Microsoft XP Pro SP2
Benchmark Software : Prime 95
Ambient Temperature : 28 Degree Celsius

Here are voltage rails results of In Win Commander 1200W during idle and full loads. As we can see, the voltage rails are quite stable and the variances are very small. The +12V4 rail has no different during idle and full load as we didn't connect any hardware for this +12V rail. Overall the voltage rails are very stable and no reliability issue at all since that day we powered up our rig with In Win Commander 1200W. The PSU is quite silent during our testing unless you put your ear right beside the PSU and the PSU just a bit warm even though we have powered up the rig 24/7 nonstop.

Conclusion

In Win is still new in PSU industry as they are OEM manufacturer all the while but with its Commander series PSU, it should able to gain some recognition very soon as their Commander PSU is not only a great features PSU (modular cable, 80PLUS efficiency) but also comes with rock solid performance where the voltage rails are very stable during our testing. The only concern of this PSU for us is the cost; 319USD is not really cheap when compare with other brand 1200W PSU but if you are really like this PSU and would like to get a stable PSU which is able serve you well at least for couple of years then In Win Commander 1200W is one of your good choices.

1/19/2009: In-Win provides "limited lifetime warranty" to Commander users who register online (www.inwin-style.com) and provide 3 years to those who do not register.

Pros:
* Comes with quad +12V rails
* Stable voltage rails
* Modular cable management
* Color & label indications
* Cool Exterior PSU casing
* Comes with additional accessories like PSU & modular cable bags

Cons:
* Not so cheap

Thanks to In Win for providing this sample for us to review.

gold_award