Introduction

We would like to thank In Win and CaseKing.de for supplying the review sample.

It’s common knowledge that whatever is built for military purposes has great durability and long lifespan, since it is manufactured with the highest available standards in order to deal with the very tough conditions on the battlefield. As it seems In Win wanted users to think the same for their Commander PSU series so they made them look like military equipment. The initial Commander PSUs were built by Channel Well Technology (CWT) while the newer Commanders are based on platforms provided by Andyson. To tell you the truth we don't like this OEM change since CWT is a key player in this field while Andyson is known mostly for their low cost and average performing platforms. However we should not prejudge the outcome of this review, since we are still in the prologue and we have eight more pages to the conclusion.

Today’s sample is a Commander II 750W painted in a dark green color, the same hue that is heavily used by the armed forces all over the world. This unit features a semi-modular cabling design, has 80 PLUS Bronze certification, utilizes DC-DC converters for the minor rails generation and is equipped with a 135 mm double-ball bearing fan.

Specifications

A military painted PSU that has only 40°C max operating temperature and on top of that it doesn't feature OTP (Over Temperature Protection). Well, this doesn't sound so good. Thankfully it's equipped with a ball bearing fan which has higher lifespan than sleeve bearing ones and the warranty is quite long for the price tag of the unit. Finally, besides the aforementioned OTP all other protections are available.


Four +12V rails co-exist in this PSU and their max combined power reaches 648W, still quite far from the 750W total power. Usually when DC-DC converters are utilized, like in this case, the max combined power of +12V is really close to the total since from this rail all other are generated so +12V alone should output the whole wattage of the unit.
The minor rails of the IRP-COM750 II are quite strong with 150W combined power and 5VSB can give up to 3A, a satisfactory output.

Cables & Connectors, Power Distribution

The main ATX and the modular PCIe cables are a little short for large cases (cave style). We would like them to have at least 600 mm length. The distance among connectors is the recommended by ATX spec. Regarding wire size, all connectors use 18 AWG gauges. Although this size is recommended by ATX spec we would highly prefer the use of thicker 16 AWG at least for the 24pin ATX connectors, since it would minimize cable resistance thus voltage drops at high loads.


The power distribution is adequate since the two EPS and the two pairs of PCIe connectors use dedicated 12V rails. Finally the 24pin ATX, SATA and peripheral connectors are powered from the remaining 12V rail.

Packaging

The package's design strictly follows the army theme and as background it uses the woodland camo color scheme. On the face of the box there is a small angled photo of the unit and the capacity, 750W, is highlighted with large yellow fonts. Right below the capacity description we find a reference to the Japanese capacitors used and to the strict voltage regulation of 5%. Actually, according to ATX spec, a PSU is required to keep all of its rails within 5% range so when a manufacturer refers to strict/tight voltage regulation we expect to see under 3% deviation on all rails. On the rear of the box we find more comprehensive information about the unit's features, specifications, DC output and there is also a description of the available cables/connectors. Finally, in order to help you move around the box more easily there is a carrying handle on the top.