Gigabyte, the traditional motherboard manufacturer, also has entered the power supply business. Let’s see how Superb 550P (GE-P450P-C2) performs.

Looking the box, a huge disappointment: this unit isn’t a 550 W power supply as you could think from its name, but a 450 W unit with 550 W peak power. We’d expect a Chinese low-end manufacturer to resort to this kind of trick, but a tier 1 motherboard manufacturer trying to deceive its customers is inadmissible. This wouldn’t be a problem if stores like Newegg.com weren’t falling for the trick and listing this unit as being a 550 W power supply. Newegg.com also lists this unit as having 80 Plus certification, however this unit isn’t 80 Plus-certified.

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Figure 1: 450 W continuous, 550 W peak.

By the way, this unit is manufactured by AcBel Polytech.

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Figure 2: Gigabyte Superb 550P power supply.

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Figure 3: Gigabyte Superb 550P power supply.

Gigabyte Superb 550P is 5 ½” (140 mm) deep, using a 120 mm fan on its bottom. This unit features passive PFC, not active, so it still has the 115 V/230 V switch you can see in Figure 2. At least it is based on a more modern topology (single-transistor forward) – most power supplies without active PFC are based on the obsolete half-bridge topology, which presents low efficiency.

No modular cabling system is provided and all cables have nylon protections, but only the one used on the main motherboard cable comes from inside the unit (see Figure 3). All cables use 20 AWG wires, which are thinner than the minimum recommended, except the ATX12V/EPS12V cable, which use 18 AWG wires (the correct gauge to be used). The cables included are:

• Main motherboard cable with a 20/24-pin connector, 18 ½” (47 cm) long.
• One cable with two ATX12V connectors that together form one EPS12V connector, 15” (38 cm) long.
• One cable with one six/eight-pin connector for video cards, 15 ¾” (40 cm) long.
• Two cables with two SATA power connectors and one peripheral power connector each, 15 ¾” (40 cm) to the first connector, 4 ¾” (12 cm) between connectors.
• One cable with two standard peripheral power connectors and one floppy disk drive power connector, 15 ¾” (40 cm) to the first connector, 4 ¾” (12 cm) between connectors.

This configuration is compatible with a 450 W product.

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Figure 4: Cables.

Now let’s take an in-depth look inside this power supply.