If you were to look at the last few PSU articles we have published you would think that all you can get these days is Platinum or Titanium 80plus rated power supplies. The fact of the matter is unless you are building an expensive build that isn’t really the type of power supply you will be looking at, nor is it what I would recommend. Don’t get me wrong, the power supply quality is important. But you can find quality power supplies that better fit your budget like in the 80 Plus Gold range. That is why when Cooler Master offered to send over their MWE Gold 750 I took them up on the offer. 750 watts is exactly the wattage a lot of builds need and a budget-friendly gold rated PSU checks most of the other boxes as well. So today lets take a look at the MWE Gold 750 and see what it is all about.
Product Name: Cooler Master MWE Gold 750 Fully Modular
Sample Provided by: Cooler Master
Written by: Wes Compton
Pictures by: Wes Compton
Amazon Affiliate Link: HERE
**Disclaimer**
LanOC Reviews only covers the features of power supplies due to not having the equipment to test them up to our standards. Because of this, you will not see a performance section, a final verdict, or awards. Therefore, we prefer to call this a preview rather than a review. Thank you for understanding; we keep our standard to the absolute highest for you, our reader.
Packaging
Well, there isn’t any of that purple that Cooler Master likes to use, but the MWE Gold 750 does have that dark grey that they have been using. The box has a photo of the power supply on the front, the photo shows the fan and the modular cable connections. Below that they highlight the 5-year warranty, the 80 Plus Gold certification, and a Dc to DC topology with icons below the PSU picture. On the left side, they have the MWE Gold 750 name with the 750 wattage being the largest. Then around on the back, I like that Cooler Master included efficiency and fan curve graphs. Efficiency graphs are nice to use when you have an idea of what wattage your system is going to pull. You can make sure that you aren’t going to be pushing the PSU in the lower efficiency ranges at the start and end of the wattage capacity. Same for the fan curve, you don’t really want to be constantly running the PSU in the range at the end where the fan is running much faster. Beyond that, they just have a few features listed over and over in different languages.
Also on the packaging, they did slip in a breakdown of all of the connections you get along with photos of each of them for anyone who might not know what their names are but know what they look like. That said they call the Molex a peripheral connection and I will forever call it Molex even though I know that is also the connection brand.
Inside the box, there is a layer of foam up on top and then a foam tray that the power supply itself sits in. All of the cables are just stuffed in the box to the right of that with everything except the power cable and 24-pin all wrapped up together and those two individually tied up. That means there is no bag or small box to store your extra cables in. I know this saves money, but it does mean someday when you upgrade your PC you will be hunting down cables trying to find them. A smaller cardboard box for cables would be enough for me. Beyond that, they did include a user manual. It has all of the pinouts for each cable should you need it, gives you installation instructions, and has information on the warranty and troubleshooting. They also include four black screws for mounting the PSU, but in addition to the cable bag being cut, there were also no zip ties. I would have liked to see at least a few included. I know most cases come with them, but I have come to rely on both the ties included with the case and PSU to get everything cleaned up and tidy.
Photos and Features
As far as styling goes, the MWE Gold 750 kept has kept things simple and went with your normal steel casing with a textured black powder coat finish just like most other power supplies. The MWE in the name stands for Master Watt Essential. Master Watt has been Cooler Masters power supply branding for a while now, fitting in with the rest of their brand like the Master Mice and everything else. The Essential part at the end though is a lot more telling. Unlike the MaterWatt Maker series of power supplies where they went crazy making the best possible power supply. The MWE series is about sticking with the basics and making the best possible power supply that fits in a budget build. So with the MWE Gold, they were looking for a budget focused 80 plus gold model. They have both modular and no-modular models depending on what people are looking for, our model is the modular model.
For dimensions, the MWE Gold 750 Modular comes in at 160 x 150 x 86mm which puts the length at just past 6 and a ¼ inches. That is standard ATX. The non-modular model does come in a little shorter at 140mm, so if space is extra tight that is an option.
Some power supplies have their information sticker on the opposite side of the fan but for the MWE Gold 750, Cooler Master went with the side. Now, this is the side that will face to the back when the fan is on the bottom, but if your case doesn’t have an intake on the bottom you can expect to see this through your window, if you have one. The bright gold 80 plus logo stands out because the rest of the sticker has a black background to match the power supply and a light grey text. This has the basic wattage breakdown to show you what voltages get what wattage and then all of the required regulatory logos under that.
When we spin the MWE Gold 750 around this is the inside facing end, where all of the modular cables hook up. You get connections that match the exact number of cables included with the power supply so there isn’t any expandability room. The 24-pin, like most other PSUs, is split up across two connections. The PCIe and CPU power cables share the same 8-pin connection below that. Then over on the right, there are four peripheral connections for Molex and SATA cables. No special USB connections because the Master Watt Essential doesn’t have or need any of that, just what you need and that is it.
Around on the other end, the outside facing end most of this end is vented with hexagon shaped cutouts over the entire left side and up over the top right along with a few lonely holes in the bottom right corner. This is all for ventilation, specifically, this is the exhaust vent that keeps any of the warmed air from the power supply from even getting into your case at all. Also back here are more of the basics, you have a power switch and plug. The plug is your normal C13 connection type, not the weird C19 that you see on some high wattage power supplies.
The last “side” on the MWE Gold 750 is the one side with the “good looking” sticker on it. This is the side they intended for people to have facing out. Now keep in mind when spitting the PSU around with the fan up like I did for our other photos this sticker will be upside down. But that is because for this side to be visible in a normal PC case the fan will have to be facing down. Flipping this keeps both this side and the other side readable when installed. I like that Cooler Master didn’t try to add any bright colors or extra styling in on this side. You get the Cooler Master logo on the left, the model name including the Fully Modular part on the right. Then a few angled lines on the top and bottom with the entire sticker being black with a very light grey that should match any build.
For cooling, there were a few things that stood out to me with the MWE Gold 750. For starters, they went with a 120mm fan, not a 140mm fan that would better fill the space. I know its weird, but seeing the 120mm fan in there reminds me a little of the days when an 80mm fan was the norm. But when it comes to cooling, if the 120mm fan is enough I’m okay with it. I know Cooler Master went with their Silencio fan which is a quality fan that shouldn’t make a bunch of noise. It has an LDB bearing which is short for Loop Dynamic Bearing. Now that I see that name, seeing Cooler Master use “LDB bearing” all over their website is a little weird lol. You wouldn’t call it a Loop Dynamic bearing bearing. Anyhow the design has a self-lubricating dustproof design with a 160,000-hour life expectancy.
The flip side has exactly nothing at all going on. You can see the standoffs for the components inside and a good look at the textured black powder coat finish and that is about it here.
For cables, Cooler Master stuck with a mostly normal configuration. All of the cables with the exception of the 24 pin are all the thin and flexible type in all black. These make wiring in tight areas much easier and while they don’t have the styling of individually sleeved cables they are a lot easier to work with. You get two SATA power cables and two Molex. I was surprised they didn’t go with three SATA one Molex, especially to offer a shorter SATA power. Both SATA cables have four connections and are 31 inches long. The two Molex cables have three Molex connections and those are 27 and a half inches long but one of the two gets extended out to 31 inches as well with a floppy connection on the end. What really stood out to me though was that the Molex connections have changed to match the SATA connections. What I mean by this, in the past Molex plugs had both cables come in from the same direction but this time they have a new punch down style connector that lets the cable pass through. Before now you couldn’t lay a Molex connection flat on its back as I have in the picture below because both sets of cables went in that end.
As for the other flexible cables, you get two PCIe cables and one 8-pin CPU power. The CPU is just under 27 inches long. The PCIe cables both have dual 8/6 pin connections on them so each cable can power a video card. The first connection on the PCIe cables is at 25 inches and then they extend out to 29 for the second. Keep in mind with just one 8-pin CPU power there are some motherboards that when overclocked need that second cable. But I think given the 750 wattage of the MWE Gold 750 this is okay.
The last cable is the 24-pin motherboard power. Cooler Master did use the same black flexible cabling for this cable as well. But they sleeved over top of it with a single black sleeve. I’m not a big fan of the mixed styling, but most power supplies do this. It does keep the 24-pin cable a little more compact
Overall
Like I mentioned in the beginning. It would be nice to throw in an 80 Plus Titanium power supply into every build. But the reality of the situation is that would be a big waste of money. They are amazing, but like any other component, it is important to match all of your components together. That means you that if you are going with a mid-range priced build, you don’t really want one or two components being from the high end and everything else being the cheapest possible. That is where power supplies like the Cooler Master MWE Gold 750 come in. They weren’t looking for a budget design, they have an MWE Bronze that can better fit that. You get a good quality 80 Plus Gold power supply, but they don’t throw in extra features that aren’t needed. That means no lighting and no USB connections to monitor voltages or anything like that.
In the end, the MWE Gold 750 ends up having simple, but clean styling. This is because Cooler Master didn’t add any colors to designate the model, they stayed in the black/grey/and white range for a nice color neutral option that should blend in with most builds. I did note though that this only works if your case has a fan down design, if you have to flip the MWE Gold 750 over and face the fan up you will have to look at the label with all of those regulation logos and a bright gold 80 plus logo.
While I didn’t test PSU performance, I did power the PSU up and put it under load to see how the fan performed. It should be noted that the fan profile doesn’t have the fan turning off at lower wattages, but they didn’t toss a cheap fan in either. Cooler Master Silencio fans are solid and run quiet.
They also cut costs by not including a bag or box to store your extra cables in so long term storage of those could be a concern. They even cut out including cable ties, which was crazy to me. They are cheap and you need as many as you can get when doing a new build.
So with the cost-cutting measures and the no-frills design where does the Cooler Master MWE Gold 750 stand in the market? Well, the Fully modular model that I took a look at here has a normal price of $99.99 which is about what it is on Amazon for right now. The non-modular version is a lot cheaper at $67.54 if you are looking for a really good price, but personally, I wouldn’t give up modularity unless I planned on using all of the cables and had no plans to do custom cables later. As for writing this though I saw that Newegg already has this model on sale until Friday (1/25/19) for $89.99. Sorting down to only gold rated, 750 watt, and full modular power supplies there were a few models cheaper. But none of them were from the short list of brands that I would trust. The MWE Gold 750 Fully Modular ends up being a great deal if you want a good sized, gold rated, modular power supply. A perfect PSU to pair with a mid-ranged build.
Live Pricing: HERE
