Cougar GX 700 W Power Supply Review

Conclusions

The only “problem” we see with the Cougar GX 700 W is that it can’t deliver the efficiency promised by the manufacturer under real-world conditions. This may due to several different reasons, and the most commons are:

• The tests for obtaining the 80 Plus certification are conducted at a room temperature of only 23° C, which is an unrealistic value, while we test power supplies between 45° C and 50° C, and efficiency drops with temperature.
• Being a German company, Cougar tests their power supplies at 230 V, while we, being based in the United States, test power supplies at 115 V (efficiency is higher at 230 V)
• The manufacturer conducted their internal tests and sent to the 80 Plus certification process pre-production samples, but mass production power supplies may not maintain the same efficiency numbers as pre-production samples.

Is Cougar GX 700 W a bad power supply? Not at all. It can deliver its labeled power at high temperatures (in fact we could pull almost 1,000 W from it), it has a terrific number of connectors, the cables are very long, voltages were always inside the appropriate numbers, noise and ripple levels were always very low, and efficiency, though not at 80 Plus Gold levels, was very high (between 86% and 88.5%).

So, if you understand that this is a good 80 Plus Silver power supply, you can buy it without fear. Also, if you live in a country with a 230 V power grid, you should be able to get higher efficiency than we did.