Cooler Master Masterwatt Maker 1200W MIJ PSU Review

1. Introduction2. Bundle & Cabling3. External4. Internal5. Testing & Methodology6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

Today we take a look at the new Cooler Master Masterwatt Maker 1200W MIJ, a power supply that has been plastered all over the tech news recently, – yep this is the one with the eye popping £900 retail price. Surely no power supply could be worth the guts of a grand?

Well, it took 40 engineers two years to create this power supply and Cooler Master involved an exclusive ultra high end OEM partner called ‘Murata' for the creation. For those interested, the ‘MIJ' in the product name stands for ‘Made In Japan” … they are pointing out that no nasty Chinese OEM's have been involved in any part of the creation. It's off to a good start.

Murata are an almost mythical OEM in the realms of power supply design. They create very expensive units for high end servers and many are designed to hold at operating specifications of 60 degrees – above the noted industry standard of 50 degrees. Murata are deadly serious about their designs, and hold a no expense spared principle, especially when it comes to ultimate build quality.

I have handled some of their power supplies in the past and they are built like a proverbial tank. Some of the in house Murata units (1500 watt+) cost close to £600. It is fairly obvious that creating something bespoke for Cooler Master is going to raise that price substantially. Many industry experts consider Murata one of the finest power companies in the industry.

When Cooler Master laid out their demands, Murata ended up making custom components, just for this unit. Murata invented a new type of power transformer just for the Masterwatt Maker 1200W. Anything that Murata didn't feel was up to specification, they created themselves in house.

Even if you can't comprehend the asking price, at least you are beginning to see just why it is priced as it is. This is a no expense spared product created for Cooler Master, and the creation of the Masterwatt Maker 1200W MIJ has already had a Halo effect on Cooler Master. We have noticed our readers are already paying more attention to other power supplies in their range. There is a new circuit board layout not available inside any other power supply.

Of course not many people can afford to spend £900 on a power supply, but that doesn't mean they won't appreciate the end result.

Model MPZ-C002-AFBAT
Type ATX 12V v2.4
PFC Active PFC
Input Voltage 100-240Vac
Input Current 13-5.5A
Input Frequency 60-50Hz
Dimensions 224mm x 150mm x 86mm
Fan type 135mm Silencio FP fan
Power Good Signal 100-500 ms
Hold Up Time >16 ms
Efficiency 94% Typically
MTBF >100,000 hours
Protections OVP/OPP/OCP/SCP/OTP/BOP
Connectors MP 20+4 Pin x 1
CPU12V 4+4PIN x 2
PCI-e 6+2 Pin x 12
SATA x16
4Pin Peripheral x 13
Regulatory TUV, CE, BSMI, FCC, TUV, KC, CCC, EAC, RCM.

Review photography handled in house at KitGuru with a Leica S series medium format camera and S series prime lens. Please do not use any of the images within this review without express permission.

The Cooler Master Masterwatt Maker 1200W MIJ arrives in a very large, very heavy black box (404 mm x 349 mm x 202mm and weighing in at around 9kg). There is a high resolution image of the power supply on the front of the box. Its not the most eye catching artwork, but the size of the box alone certainly attracts the eye.

The rear of the box highlights some specifications of the power supply in multiple languages. Cooler Master are offering a 10 year warranty with the unit, which while impressive, actually falls 2 years short of the recent announcement by Seasonic. Still, no doubting 10 years is a heck of a solid warranty to have when buying a new supply.

The outer shell of the box removes to reveal a very fancy hard box underneath. This box pulls apart into two sections.

Oh Fancy. Cooler Master explain just how special this power supply is and how they teamed up with the legendary Murata Corporation to create something unique, built to the highest standards. People who enjoy the unboxing experience will love this. For some reason I was reminded of when I unboxed my first pair of Sony R10 headphones many decades ago. At each side of this sheet of thick paper are two containers.

Both of these boxes contain the modular cables. They are even colour coordinated, as shown by the thick rubber zips above.

One of the boxes contains mounting screws, cable ties and a small user manual, which was actually a little disappointing considering the work that has gone into everything else so far.

There are no shortage of cables inside both of the hard cases, as shown above. Most of the cables are high grade 16-18 AWG with only the 20+4 Pin ATX connector being a 22AWG design.

Cables:

20+4 ATX connector x 1
4+4 pin CPU connector x 2
6+2 pin PCI-E x4 (4 total)
6+2 pin PCI-E + 6+2 pin PCI-E x4 (8 total)
SATA (4 headers per cable) x 4 (16 total)
Molex (5 headers per cable) x 1
Molex (4 headers per cable) x 1

No shortage of power cables, thats for sure!

The Cooler Master Masterwatt Maker 1200W MIJ is a serious looking industrial style slab measuring 224 mm (L) x 150 mm (W) x 86 mm (H). The finishing is simply beautiful, although it does attract fingerprints somewhat easily. Paint work is reassuringly deep, and a cleaning cloth is recommended.

Did I mention that it weighs an absolute ton? I have no scales here, but Cooler Master quote the gross weight (box and all accessories at 8.96kg) and the net weight of the power supply itself at 4.84kg. Yes that's almost 5 kgs for the power supply alone. Insane.

The Cooler master logo sits centerstage in front of the large cooling fan underneath. We will take a closer look at the fan later in the review when we crack the unit open.

One side of the unit is home to the venting panel, a power connector and a power cable.

The modular panel is cleanly laid out, with the various sizes of cable connector impossible to slot into the wrong ports. As such, there Cooler Master didn't feel the name to print names of various connectors here. We see no need either.

Cooler Master Masterwatt Maker 1200W MIJ
DC Output	+3.3V	+5V	+12V	-12V	+5Vsb
Max Output	25A	25A	100A	0.5A	3.5A
Total Power	130W		1200W	6W	17.5W
	1200W

The single +12V rail is able to deliver 100 amps which is plenty for high end multi card SLI or Crossfire system configurations.

The fan is branded Cooler Master, and is in fact one of their high grade Silencio units. It comprises a ‘loop dynamic bearing' inside and is rated up to 2,800 rpm 12V, 0.5A. Hey, its made in China too which I found a little ironic, considering the ‘MIJ' tag in the name of the supply.

Technically this fan is very capable, its a sleeve bearing fan with a rated MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) of 160,000 hours. With a ten year warranty its not such a worry anyway.

Below - a High Resolution Gallery of the internal layout of the Cooler Master Masterwatt Maker 1200W MIJ 

The PCB soldering work is exceptionally high and the main PCB design is above anything we have seen in the last decade. There are two coils, four X caps, four Y caps and a TVS diode in the line filter. There is an interleaved bridgeless design. The shielded PFC coils are literally works of art, and clearly hand made. Build quality is staggeringly high throughout.

We found capacitors from Nippon Chemi Con and Rubycon throughout the power supply – all high grade Japanese models. We noticed that the standby and PFC control board has two fuses – one for the board and the other for the line input. Primary stage capacitors are made by Nippon Chemi Con and rated 420V 830uF and 420V 620uF (Total 1450uF). As a comparison , the Kolink Continuum 1200 watt supply we reviewed last week has a total of 940uF combined (HERE)).

Power supply transformers generally use copper wire coiled around a ferrite core. For this MasterWatt Maker 1200 MIJ Murata came up with the idea of using thin sheets of copper stacked on top of each other with a very thin layer of insulation between them. Cooler Master say this is uniquely used in this power supply. In the case of PFC MOSFET's – Infineon's CoolMOS C7 series is used throughout – these are expensive, as much as four times more compared against a traditional MOSFET.

The boost diode is supplied by Japanese ROHM and it is made from silicon carbide, a relatively new material for these kind of components. This will allow the boost diode to run at higher voltages and higher temperatures when compared against silicon based counterparts. This particular design is using a matched pair to produce less heat.

The modular board is yet another work of art and flawless in the execution of design – Rubycon capacitors are fitted to the other side of the PCB. Murata also developed custom choke coils at a higher grade than anything we have seen in a consumer level power supply in recent years. Cooler Master claim they are more at a level of those inside a high end AV amplifier.

Cooler Master claim that this unit can handle brownouts as low as 73V which is better than the industry average between 90-95V.

I don't think I have ever seen a more impressive power supply design in the last 10 years, It really is that impressive on an engineering level.

Correctly testing power supplies is a complex procedure and KitGuru have configured a test bench which can deliver up to a 2,000 watt DC load.

We test ambient temperatures at 35c in our environment to greater reflect warmer internal chassis conditions.

We use combinations of the following hardware:

• SunMoon SM-268
• CSI3710A Programmable DC load (+3.3V and +5V outputs)
• CSI3711A Programmable DC load (+12V1, +12V2, +12V3, and +12V4)
• Extech Power Analyzer
• Extech MultiMaster MM570 digital multimeter
• Extech digital sound level meter
• Digital oscilloscope (20M S/s with 12 Bit ADC)
• Variable Autotransformer, 1.4 KVA

 

DC Output Load Regulation
Combined DC Load	+3.3V		+5V		+12V		+5VSB		-12V
	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V
120W	0.89	3.34	0.92	5.07	8.93	12.00	0.50	5.02	0.20	-12.02
240W	1.62	3.34	1.64	5.07	18.43	12.00	1.00	5.02	0.20	-12.02
600W	3.01	3.33	3.12	5.06	46.78	12.00	1.50	5.01	0.30	-12.02
900W	4.02	3.32	4.05	5.06	70.86	12.00	2.00	5.01	0.30	-12.03
1200W	5.00	3.32	5.20	5.06	94.55	12.00	2.50	5.01	0.30	-12.03

Load regulation is stellar across all the rails, and some of the best results we have seen.

Cooler Master Masterwatt Maker 1200W MIJ	Maximum Load
	1435 Watts

We managed to get another 235 watts from the power supply before the protection circuitry kicked in. The supply was undamaged and it was ready to fire up again when we dropped the load to a more realistic level. Yes it held steady at 1,400 watts.

Next we want to try Cross Loading. This basically means loads which are not balanced. If a PC for instance needs 500W on the +12V outputs but something like 30W via the combined 3.3V and +5V outputs then the voltage regulation can fluctuate badly.

Cross Load Testing	+3.3V		+5V		+12V		-12V		+5VSB
	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V
1190W	4.0	3.33	3.0	5.07	88.0	11.99	0.2	-12.02	0.50	5.01
240W	19.0	3.32	22.0	5.05	2.5	12.01	0.2	-12.02	0.50	5.02

The Cooler Master Masterwatt Maker 1200W MIJ delivered great results across the range of input, with little, if any droop across all the rails.

We then used an oscilloscope to measure AC ripple and noise present on the DC outputs. We set the oscilloscope time base to check for AC ripple at both high and low ends of the spectrum. ATX12V V2.2 specification for DC output ripple and noise is defined in the ATX 12V power supply design guide.

ATX12V Ver 2.2 Noise/Ripple Tolerance
Output	Ripple (mV p-p)
+3.3V	50
+5V	50
+12V1	120
+12V2	120
-12V	120
+5VSB	50

Obviously when measuring AC noise and ripple on the DC outputs the cleaner (less recorded) means we have a better end result. We measured this AC signal amplitude to see how closely the unit complied with the ATX standard.

AC Ripple (mV p-p)
DC Load	+3.3V	+5V	+12V	5VSB
100W	5	5	5	5
200W	5	5	5	5
400W	5	5	5	5
600W	5	5	5	5
800W	5	5	5	5
1000W	5	5	10	5
1200W	5	5	10	5

I don't think I have ever seen results quite this good! All minor rails held at 5mV regards of load. The +12V rail peaked at only 10mV at full load. Truly remarkable results

Efficiency (%)
100W	90.7
200W	94.3
400W	94.9
600W	96.5
800W	95.7
1000W	94.8
1200W	94.1

The overall efficiency results are staggeringly high, peaking at 96.5% at 600W. This drops to 94.1% efficiency at full load, a very impressive result overall.

We take the issue of noise very seriously at KitGuru and this is why we have built a special home brew system as a reference point when we test noise levels of various components. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on components we are testing. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

Today to test the Power Supply we have taken it into our acoustics room environment and have set our SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter (6-130dBa) one meter away from the unit. We have no other fans running so we can effectively measure just the noise from the unit itself.

As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels.

KitGuru noise guide

10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 Player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

Noise (dBA)
100W	<28.0
200W	<28.0
400W	<28.0
600W	31.5
800W	32.7
1000W	33.9
1200W	35.9

The Cooler Master Masterwatt Maker 1200W is a quiet power supply and the fan only really becomes active once it hits around 650 watts load. Under most situations you would be hard pressed to even know it was on, especially as you are likely to be running a single case fan at the same time. The unit does not suffer from any coil whine.

Temperature (c)
	Intake	Exhaust
100W	35	37
200W	36	39
400W	38	43
650W	43	49
800W	45	52
1000W	47	56
1200W	50	60

The fan doesn't really spin much in the first 500-600 watts load meaning it is basically almost silent. At higher loads the fan spins up although the pitch of the fan is very low so its difficult to pick out against even ambient room noises. Its a very quiet unit, even when powering a 1000 watt load. Remarkable, yet again.

Maximum load	Efficiency
1435W	93.2

Pushing the power supply above its rated limits generates an efficiency level of around 93.2%. Yes just over 93% efficiency when holding a 1400Watt load. Not figures to sneeze at.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Cooler Master Masterwatt Maker 1200W MIJ will go down in the annals of tech history as one of the finest consumer power supplies ever created. We may balk at paying £900 for a power supply, but on an engineering level the Masterwatt Maker 1200W MIJ really is a work of art.

First impressions are important. Cooler Master know this, and the presentation, box, and accessories are all remarkably well executed. The dual, individually coded hard cases for the cables slot into foam inserts on either side of the power supply itself – which is initially hidden under a printed, company statement of intent. The only disappointing aspect is the rather half hearted user manual. Cooler Master could really have taken this a step further to really reinforce to the customer just how special this unit really is. After all many people will never open the supply to look inside, especially if they want to keep their 10 year warranty.

Load regulation is top drawer, and efficiency levels are off the chart. It is an extremely high performing unit right in the top echelon of high end units available to the enthusiast user with very deep pockets. Technically to be honest, I couldn't find a fault, it really is that good a power supply which actually goes some way to justify the price point.

While this is the power supply many of us want in our new rig, the sticking point will be the price. Its like desiring that Rolex watch, many of us will never be in a position to buy one, but we admire the company ethos and the outstanding long term build quality.

There is a lot to like. The Masterwatt maker 1200W is almost silent under most load conditions, and very quiet when tasked with 1000 watts of power demand. Ripple suppression is the best I have seen in the last 5 years. Minor rails peaked at 5mV under full load. The +12V rail peaked at 10mV at full load. This is remarkable.

Scoring this product is difficult. If we were being really cynical we could just downscore the unit because of the price, but this is not a power supply to target any sizeable percentage of enthusiast user. This is a HALO product Cooler Master created with Murata as the driving force. Murata supplies are well known to be insanely expensive, so for those in the know, its obvious that a custom, bespoke design for Cooler Master would ramp costs even higher.

To be fair Murata did create components just for this power supply, and it took 40 engineers 2 years to create – so the Research and Development costs alone, for such a HALO product will be difficult to recoup. I would go as far to say that Cooler Master may in fact lose money on the creation of this product, especially considering the low levels of production they have planned. As an enthusiast user with a love for engineering, I have to applaud Cooler Master for even attempting this rather unusual project. We need more companies to take risks like this to create a ripple in the industry.

I hope that at least it raises an awareness of how important a good power supply is, when creating a new system build. Many people invest all their money into a new processor and graphics card, only to spend £30 on a power supply. I have said it many times in the past, but skimping on the quality of a power supply is actually dangerous, because when it fails (and it will), it will likely take out other components in the build. Instability, BSOD's and failure to overclock are often tied into poor, weak, power delivery. Take note!

I am going to score this power supply purely on the astounding engineering standards in all areas. It may be difficult for some people to understand, but the £900 asking price is justified. It targets a very specific, niche user who just wants the finest components available in his or her system.

You can buy the Cooler Master Masterwatt Maker 1200W MIJ from Novatech, Box, or Scan for around the £900 mark.

Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.

Pros:

• Technically incredible.
• Delivered 1400 watts before shutting down.
• Pure modular.
• It is a work of art with custom designed components inside.
• High grade cables.
• Load regulation.
• no coil whine.
• low noise, even at high load.
• Ripple suppression is class leading.
• 10 year warranty.

Cons:

• Its £900.

Kitguru says: The Cooler Master Masterwatt Maker 1200W MIJ is in a class of its own. On an engineering level it is a work of art and will go down in history as one of the finest power supplies ever made.

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