Today we’re looking at Element Gaming’s 600W PSU, courtesy of Ebuyer. The 600W model is the least capacious of the new range, which is also available in 700W and 800W varieties. Let’s put it in a PC and to the test — can this new brand stand up to established names like Cooler Master and Corsair?
Pros
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Cons
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Summary and score
Element Gaming’s 600W PSU is in the Goldilocks Zone; expensive enough to be credible and cheap enough to be enticing. The PSU worked well in our testing too, offering quiet operation and a good selection of connectors. While the cables themselves could be longer to allow for more creative rerouting, otherwise we have no complaints. It might not be enough to tempt hardcore fans of bigger names, but it’ll definitely suit bargain-hunters.
Features & Specifications
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Unboxing
We’ll keep this short, as there’s not much to cover.
Apart from the power supply itself, the Element Gaming PSU comes with a pair of zip ties, five screws, an cautionary piece of literature and a power cable.
Design
Now for the design of the power supply itself. We see a black box, pretty standard, with a blue 120mm fan inside. This is a little smaller than the 140mm fans we sometimes see, but big enough that it can spin slowly and quietly.
The side of the case has a helpful table of wattage and currents, which unhelpfully isn’t provided on Element Gaming or Ebuyer’s website.
The cables are covered by mesh for protection. There’s a motherboard main power connector (20/24 pin), an auxiliary motherboard power connector (4/8 pin) and a pair of PCI-e connectors (each 6/8 pin). For storage and optical drives, we have four SATA connectors, two Molex connectors and one floppy disk connector (always important).
Overall, a comprehensive package that should suit most single-GPU PCs, or PCs with two modest GPUs. If you have an excessive amount of drives or GPUs, you’ll need a better-equipped PSU, but most low-end or mid-range PCs should be fine.
Installation
For the installation, we took one of our older PCs out of storage and cleaned it up. With the original 850W PSU removed, we were ready to install the new Element Gaming PSU (and a new graphics card while we were at it).
The PSU slotted in easily as expected, with the clutch of neatly bound cables sitting at the base of the case. Sadly, you can’t really see the blue fan with this kind of mount, as it’s on the bottom. Oh well.
Another shot, courtesy of our stellar cameraperson.
You can see one of the problems we ran into during installation here. The auxiliary motherboard power cable is quite short, so we had to choose between snaking it around the CPU cooler and above the RAM, or running it underneath the graphics card on the top of the photo. As you can see, we opted for the first choice, but it was a tight fit and ensured that we had no option to keep the cable out of the way. At least the cable is nicely armoured, so it shouldn’t cause any issues.
With all the connections made, we were ready to go. Thankfully we made no mistakes in the cleaning and assembly, and the PC worked perfectly.
Wrap-up
So the Element Gaming 600W is a reasonable choice if you’re looking for a low-cost PSU that isn’t dangerously inexpensive. It looks fine, it isn’t loud, and it provides enough hookups for a modern single-GPU system.
The problem with reviewing a power supply is that its chief feature, reliability, is nearly impossible to judge over a short period (unless it fails in those first weeks, which would quite a feat). So for now, we’ve got no issues, and we’ll update this review if that changes. For now, it’s a recommendation from us.
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