The Cooler Master MWE V2 Gold 750W PSU Review: Effective, But Limited By Aging Platform

Cooler Master, renowned for its pioneering role in cooling technologies, has evolved into a key player in the PC components industry, extending its expertise to include cases and power supply units (PSUs). The company's current catalog is a testament to its commitment to diversity, featuring over 75 PC cases, 90 coolers, and 120 PSUs, all designed to cater to the evolving demands of tech enthusiasts and professionals alike.

This review focuses on the Cooler Master MWE Gold V2 750W PSU, a key offering in Cooler Master's power supply lineup that embodies the brand's vision of combining quality and value. The MWE Gold V2 series is engineered to offer solid performance and reliability at a price point that appeals to system builders and gamers looking for an entry-level to mid-range solution. As a result, various versions of the MWE Gold 750W have been a consistently popular offering within Cooler Master's catalog, often cycling in and out of stock depending on what sales are going on. This makes the PSU a bit harder to track down in North America than it does Europe, and quick to vanish when it does show up.

Packaging and Bundle

We received the MWE V2 Gold 750W PSU in relatively subtle packaging, with purple sidewalls and its artwork based on a picture of the PSU itself. The walls of the cardboard box are very thick, offering ample shipping protection. Technical details regarding the performance of the PSU are printed on the rear side of the box.

Cooler Master supplies only the bare minimum items required to install and operate the PSU. Inside the box we only found four typical M3.5 mounting screws and an AC power cable. The MWE V2 Gold PSU is a fully modular design that allows for the removal of every DC power cable, including the 24-pin ATX connector. All of the cables are bare, ribbon-like, with black wires and black connectors. There is no floppy connector, or an adapter.

The Cooler Master MWE V2 Gold 750W PSU

External Appearance

The chassis of the Cooler Master MWE V2 Gold 750W PSU measures 86 mm × 150 mm × 160 mm (H × W × D), making it 20 mm deeper than a fully ATX-compliant design. This form factor has the MWE Gold V2 750W fitting comfortably within the vast majority of modern PC cases, designed to accommodate high-performance power supplies. However, its precise measurements may still present a compatibility challenge with certain compact or small footprint case designs, where space is at a premium.

Cooler Master did not invest too much into the external appearance of the MWE V2 Gold PSU, in an obvious attempt to keep the manufacturing costs as low as possible. It is using a standard chassis with a typical wireframe finger guard, sprayed with a matte black paint. A sticker with the unit’s certifications and specifications covers most of the unit’s left side and a decorative sticker with the series logo covers the right side. The top of the chassis is entirely plain.

A typical on/off switch can be seen at the rear side of the unit, right next to the standard AC power receptacle. A significant portion of the front side of the unit is covered by the connectors for the modular cables, with a basic legend printed above each connector. There is no 12VHPWR connector on this unit as it is not ATX 3.0 compliant.

Internal Design

The cooling fan responsible for the cooling of the MWE V2 Gold 750W PSU is made by Hong Hua, a reputable manufacturer. It is a simple, all-black fan but, aesthetics aside, it is of very high quality and with an Hydro Dynamic Bearing engine. Despite the chassis having the space for a larger fan, Cooler Master went with a 120 mm model, which will reduce the acoustic performance of the PSU a little compared to a 135 mm fan of equal quality. Still, the company was very reserved with the fan’s choice, as the installed fan can reach a speed of just 1500 RPM, a low speed for a 120 mm fan.

The OEM behind the creation of the MWE V2 Gold 750W PSU is Huizhou Xinhuiyuan Technology, a company often employed by Cooler Master to create their power-related products. It is not a very popular OEM among advanced PC PSU suppliers, but that says nothing about the quality of the performance of the unit all by itself.

In terms of design, the MWE V2 Gold is based on relatively aged but proven topologies, which is to be expected of a product designed with value and reliability in mind. The filtering stage begins at the rear of the AC receptacle, with a total of two Y capacitors, two X capacitors, and two filtering inductors. A rectifying bridge can be seen attached to its dedicated heatsink. The larger heatsink across the side of the PCB holds the active components of the APFC circuitry. Elite supplies the large 450V/560μF APFC capacitor.

Right after the APFC circuitry, on a fairly sized heatsink, two transistors form a full-bridge LLC inversion topology. A full-bridge topology is a large surprise in a product supposedly designed to keep the retail cost as low as possible. These four transistors are the CS10N50F from Huajing Microelectronics, a Chinese manufacturer, with good on-paper specifications.

Four P16N04S transistors on the secondary side generated the 12V line, supplied by Excelliance, another Chinese manufacturer. These are mounted on the underside of the PCB, with only the heatsinks visible from the top side of the board. The 3.3V and 5V lines are being generated via the DC-to-DC conversion circuits. Everything, power and signals alike, are being transferred from the main PCB to the secondary PCB housing the cable connectors via cables, creating a bit of a mess on the side of the PSU. The polymer capacitors on the secondary side are supplied by FPCAP (Nichicon) but the electrolytic capacitors are supplied mostly by Elite, with just a couple LTec capacitors hidden under the wiring.