Introduction

We would like to thank Rosewill for supplying the review sample.



Newegg’s home-brand is Rosewill, and the company has enrolled into various market segments of which the most significant are PSUs, cases, and mechanical keyboards. They were also wise enough to team up with Super Flower for PSUs, one of the best OEMs today, so their offerings in this area are very good, which allows them to meet the tough competition eye to eye in most cases. Rosewill products naturally enjoy Newegg’s support and are widely available in the US, but Newegg doesn't have a presence in Europe or Asia just yet. This will hopefully change in the near future, once they decide that it is nigh time to expand into other regions.

Today’s menu consists of Rosewill’s flagship Capstone modular series unit with 1 kW capacity and 80 Plus Gold-certified efficiency. The unit is based on an older Super Flower platform, which, however, still delivers good performance for today's standards, and, most importantly, allows Rosewill to sell this unit for a very good price. Thanks to its six PCIe connectors, the large Capstone unit will easily power a three-way SLI or Crossfire system, and its resilience to high operating temperatures over prolonged periods of time and with the full load (up to 50 °C) proves that quality components are used in its construction. Rosewill obviously also has a lot of faith in the platform since they guarantee it to operate properly for seven years, providing a one-to-one replacement policy should anything go wrong. But enough with the long prologue, lets check on the unit's specifications.

Specifications

The PSU's efficiency is Gold-certified, and it can deliver its full power continuously at up to 50°C ambient. It is also compatible with the sleep states (C6&C7) Intel introduced with its Haswell CPUs, and Rosewill says all protection features to be available.

The cooling fan uses ball-bearings, so it will last for quite long. However, some users have posted reports of fan problems on Newegg's product page. To be more specific, the unit's fan died during the first days of use. Rosewill thankfully covers the PSU with a hefty seven year warranty, so you are covered regardless of what happens. We also pushed the fan incredibly hard in our tests and conducted several additional tests where we operated the fan at full speed over a prolonged period of time and at a high ambient temperature without incident. Its price is very good for a 1 kW Gold PSU. The previous generation platform probably plays a major role in keeping the price low as it has already been in production for several years and counting.


The single +12V rail is powerful since it can deliver more than 80 A, so it will easily feed multiple VGAs and other energy hungry components. The minor rails are strong enough for a contemporary system, and the 5VSB rail is a little stronger than the standard 2.5 A in most PSUs.

Cables & Connectors, Power Distribution

All cables are long enough, and the distance amongst connectors will suffice in most cases. This PSU carries an adequate number of connectors for its capacity. These include six PCIe and two EPS connectors that are available at the same time. It might sounds strange, but this unit lacks a floppy connector, while all other Capstone members feature one. Although floppy drives are a thing of the past, some components (e.g. sound cards) still use such connectors, so we think Rosewill should include at least one FDD adapter in the bundle. Finally, all connectors use standard 18AWG wires.

Since this PSU features a single +12V rail, we do not have anything to comment on about its power distribution.

Packaging

The product comes in a rather serious design, so its packaging doesn't features any fancy graphics. The front comes with a photograph of the unit with its fan grill exposed and the few affixed cables meticulously hidden, or photoshopped. Three icons stand for Gold efficiency, the seven year warranty, and the semi-modular design. Above those are the model and the capacity descriptions.


A plastic handle on top will make moving it around easy.


Rosewill lists all available connectors and mentions each Capstone model's power specifications on the back. There is also a brief features description here.

Contents

The unit is surrounded by packing foam, so it will most likely reach its owner in pristine condition. As you can see in the last of the above photos, the PSU is also inside a plastic bag.


The bundle includes a pouch for the modular cables, an AC power cord, a set of fixing bolts, several zip ties, and a user's manual.