Spire RockeTeer V 500W PSU

To put strain on the power supply, I ran 2 instances of Pi on top of a 2GB file transfer and a loop of 3D Mark ’05. So here we have the video card being pushed, the CPU being killed and the both hard drives spinning. This is quite a power draw so let’s see how the ‘RockeTeer’ did.

The numbers speak for themselves. This power supply is rock stable across the board with minute fluctuations on any of the three rails. The Spire SP-500W fulfills my expectations and then some. To test out the PSU even further, I ran 3D Mark ’05 in loop mode for 6 hours while I ran some errands in town with the ‘turbo fan switch’ off. The PSU did not crash, even with the 120mm fan on bottom turned off.

There is one complaint that I do have with the power supply, and that is the questionable plastic used in the connectors. In my Antec P180 case, there are some tight turns and the cables on this power supply are rather firm. The tension from the cable pulled the cord out of my hard drive at an angle, which caused a piece of the plastic broke off of the connector. This was noticed when the power supply was removed from my test bench. Other than that, I have no complaints about the unit. It did what it was supposed to do, and did it well. The rails were solid and did not fluctuate and even when being burdened for long periods of time with less than normal cooling, the unit did not fail or hiccup.

As stated earlier, there were many strong selling points on this power supply, namely the modular cables. This is my first modular power supply and I must say that it reminds me a lot of my friends Mod Stream. I would have no reservations at all in recommending this to anyone in the market for a new power supply.

Pros
• Modular design
• 2 Blue LED fans
• Plenty of cooling (1 x 80mm, 1 x 120mm)
• All of the cables are sleeved
• SLI compliant
• Fast and courteous tech support

Cons
• Weak plastic on cable connectors
• Cables are a bit too firm for some cases

All in all, this is a quality product. I am glad to see that Spire did their homework and produced a quality manufactured power supply. There are far too many companies that offer power supplies, that I would not wish on my worst enemy. It’s a relief to see that Spire chose the high road and produced a quality unit.

When I called to figure out what was going on with the missing PCI-E connector I was on hold for all of 5 minutes and to me, that is an acceptable wait. I know people are busy and I appreciated only having to wait for a few minutes. Never did I mention that I was with a review site either, while waiting. I was only after words did I mention who I was with so I am confident that any end user with a problem would get the same amount of respect that I received from the fine folks at Spire.

After all is said and done, I like this power supply and I like the fact that Spire is continuing to produce quality products. After taking everything into consideration, I am giving the Spire SP-500W an 8 out of 10.

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