What are we going to do about this potential problem? Well, it all comes back to the two choices that engineers make when deciding on their new processor designs: lower power consumption or increased functionality. We will probably have to look to mobile chips for inspiration, much like Intel did when designing the ICM, but instead of taking that design and exploiting it in a way that negates the decreased power consumption by adding more and more features, engineers will have to make the decisions they seem to have been avoiding for the past 15 years.

With that rant complete, the subject of today’s review is none other than one of those 1kW power supplies I just mentioned. Cooler Master’s Real Power Pro 850 greatly impressed us when we reviewed it back in mid-December of last year. Their latest model, the Real Power Pro 1000, seems to be little more than a more powerful version of the 850. Let’s see if lives up to the precedent.

Features and Specifications
In our review of the Real Power Pro 850, we went over the whole “World’s First 6 +12V Rails” claim. Our conclusion was that not only did the RPP850 have 6 +12V rails, it had 6 “real” +12V rails. This meant that there were dedicated taps on the transformers for each +12V rail, rather than 3 taps that were then split. Due to the relatively small size of the RPP850, and RPP1000 for that matter, this seemed to be quite a feat. We expected the RPP1000 to have virtually identical guts to the RPP850, but we opened it up anyway to make sure.

We were surprised to see that the inside of the RPP1000 has quite a few differences from the internals of its predecessor. While the transformer configuration seems to be the same, there are several physical differences clearly evident. Among these are the shape of the main heatsink, the number of heatsinks, and slightly different positioning of electrical components. There are, however, still 6 “real” +12V rails, so that much remains the same. The RPP1000 also maintains the single 135mm fan that is becoming increasingly common amongst high-output power supplies.


Externally the RPP1000 is identical to the RPP850, with the exception of the labels. The unit itself sports a mirror-like finish that reflects ambient case light for a nice effect. The color of the unit, gunmetal, vibes very well with the colors commonly found on most case designs today. The cable configuration is identical to that of the RPP850, with a 20+4-pin motherboard connector, 8-pin +12V CPU connector (EPS12V compliant), 4-pin +12V CPU connector, 8 SATA connectors, 6 4-pin peripheral (MOLEX) connectors, 2 auxiliary power connectors (floppy drives, old video cards), and 4 6-pin PCI-E connectors. Unfortunately one of our big gripes with the RPP850 has not been addressed with the RPP1000 as the unit also lacks an on/off switch, meaning that the technician must unplug the unit before working on the computer.