1 - Introduction 2 - Overview 3 - Exterior 4 - Interior 5 - Testing 6 - Summary ›»

Introduction

The power requirements of enthusiast and gaming PCs have increased dramatically over the last few years, due to the development of ever more powerful and sophisticated CPUs and graphics processors. More power can often mean higher energy bills, and manufacturers have been working on improving power efficiency for their products in response.

While the general trend has been higher energy consumption, there are many consumers that don’t need a high end kilowatt (or higher) power supply. There is still a considerable market for mid-range units in the 750-800W range that are powerful enough to run SLI or Crossfire without being overkill and breaking the bank.

The Cougar CMX V3 850W is one such enthusiast-oriented mid-range power supply, and while this unit isn’t a beast like some we’ve seen of late, it is 80PLUS Bronze certified and comes with a partly modular design, with the intent of providing value to consumers on a budget.

Let’s take a closer look at this Cougar power supply and see how it fares.