ACE A-500BR

The A-500BR is a 500 W ATX power supply manufactured by the ACE Company in China. It is a black-coloured one built to high specifications, and boasts 120 mm low noise fan, Power Factor Control (PFC), 6-Pin PCI-E connector, multi-core CPU support, and SATA power connectors.

They have a number of models with varying power capacity.

• A-500BR / 500-watts
• A-550BR / 550-watts
• A-600BR / 600-watts

Review

I thought this power supply was good value and worth writing about because I was impressed with its build quality and operation. I bought mine on eBay for approximately 17.00 including postage, which I thought was very good value for a cheap gaming, ATX power supply.

Just recently, the power supply in my computer died because I had added too many hard drives over the years and the old power supply was straining to meet the power requirements. My old power supply was over ten years old, and even then, it was not a new one, so I figured it was time for it to go anyway. The morning it died, I switched ON the power and heard a loud cracking sound followed by smell of something burning. From the smell, my impression was that it was likely the coil in the chopper transformer had finally burnt.

Being a techie a simple computer is just not good enough for me. I have to have no less than five hard drives for dedicated storage functions, and they tend to place a huge load on the power supply unit. Then there is the floppy drive, DVD writer, temperature controller, fans, and a whole bunch of other stuff that all draw power from the main power supply box. Therefore, it is extremely important that the PSU can provide the total current and power requirements, but more importantly, I needed something that could handle the power load placed on it.

I have had this new unit for over seven months and it seems to work fine. The fan certainly is quiet, and the computer appears to have had a new lease of life.

Connectors

Box