Kolink Continuum 1200w Power Supply Review

Introduction & Closer Look

You may have seen a new range of products by a company called Kolink pop up over at www.overclockers.co.uk or www.caseking.de over the last month and wondered where this new brand might have originated from. It may be of surprise (or not) that Kolink are produced and manufactured by Hungarian company Caseking Kellytech; Caseking own Overclockers UK if you didn’t already know which obviously gives them exclusive distribution rights over Kolink.

With all of the above company politics aside, today I will be taking a look at a very interesting product in the shape of the Kolink Continuum 1200w modular power supply which features an 80 PLUS Platinum efficiency rating. With the Continuum being one of Kolink’s premier and premium products, it’s worth mentioning that this particular model’s OEM is High Power; they can sometimes be known as Sirtec. This means the Kolink Continuum 1200w could be a very decent unit indeed…

Starting with the packaging and contents, the Continuum 1200w comes in a black and green box, which does look pretty subtle and professional.

Inside the box, the Kolink Continuum is nestled neatly inside a plethora of hard foam giving the power supply all the protection it requires when transporting. In the right-hand compartment of the foam is a 2 pin European power cable, although I would have liked to have seen a 3 pin UK given that we are in the UK and not in mainland Europe.

In addition to the power supply itself and all of the foam, the Continuum’s cables come packed nice and neatly inside a black Kolink branded box; perfect for keeping all your cables in one place!

With the Kolink Continuum being fully modular, the following cables have been included:

1 x 20+4-Pin EPS12V (Motherboard)
1 x 8-Pin EPS12V (CPU)
1 x 4+4Pin EPS12V (CPU)
8 x SATA (Drives)
8 x 4-Pin Molex (Various Devices)
6 x dual 6+2-Pin PCI-e (Graphics Cards)

Plenty of cables and with a 1200w peak output, 6 x PCI-e power cables have been included for some of the largest SLI/Crossfire setups. The cables themselves are of high quality and due to their flat nature, they are perfect for cable management; good guy Kolink!

Also included are 4 x Phillips screws for mounting inside of your chosen case and a pack of black cable ties for improved cable management.

Looking at the Kolink Continuum 1200w Platinum unit itself, like the box, Kolink has gone with a nicely implemented black finish with a set of green contrasting stripes. One glaring design issue that I can see straight off the bat is the ‘unrivalled performance for an unbeatable price’ moniker which takes pride of place on the side. This could be off-putting to those who take pride in the boasting about the expensive nature of their system and although value is of course a massive plus point to the Continuum, I don’t think the side of the product is the place to advertise it.

At the rear, we have a honeycomb ventilation panel and a simple on/off switch. Nothing extra special here, but I do sometimes believe simplicity is important, especially when your focus is on performance and not gimmicky features.

The cable inputs are distinguishable depending on the type of cable being installed; red for the CPU/PCI-e and black for the peripherals/IDE/SATA power cables. I do believe however that swapping the red connectors out for a matching green (to the colour of the contrasting green at the sides of the unit) would have been more suitable. The red and green do clash a bit and with a bit of careful planning, this could have been avoiding.

Cooling the Kolink Continuum 1200w 80PLUS Platinum rated power supply is a singular 140mm fan which is semi-passive; this means that the fan will spin only when the unit is starting to warm up or is being constantly hammered. If you purchase this unit and the fan isn’t spinning, don’t worry, that’s just how it’s been designed for maximum acoustic performance!

Here is an example of how the cables look when installed into the unit; the mechanism is very firm, but that’s a good sign of quality. The flat ribboned style cables are of good quality, but as you can see, soon as they start to pull apart, they can get a little bit messy. Moral here is, keep them as straight as you can for maximum cable management potential and if you have any doubts, you can always cable tie them together!

Specifications

– Dimensions: 150 x 86 x 180 mm (W x H x D)
– Fan: 140 mm (automatic control, semi-passive)
– Colour: Black (power supply, fan)
– Efficiency: at least 92/90/89 percent 50/20/100 percent utilisation. Meets the requirements of 80 Plus Platinum. Efficiency in the European 230-volt power is up to two percentage points higher
– Active PFC
– Form Factor: ATX12V 2.4 / EPS12V 2.92
– Power: 1200 W
– Protections: OVP / UVP (protection against overvoltage and under voltage), SCP (Short Circuit) OPP (overload) OCP (overcurrent on the rails +12, +3.3 and +5 volts)
– Warranty: 5 Year Warranty

Performance

Since we don’t currently have access to an ATE load tester, a multi-meter is used to show each of the power supplies performance on the 3.3v, 5v and 12v rails. Although we can’t do full load tests, we can provide relative information regarding variance and fluctuation of current and ripple on the rails which is integral and indicative of quality in a power supply.

To perform the above tests, the methodology will be as follows:

Intel Core i7 6770K @ 4.5GHz
ASUS Z170 Maximus VIII Hero Alpha
ASUS GTX 1060 STRIX OC – Overclocked and power limit set to the maximum
Crucial (4x8gb) 32GB DDR4 Ballistix Elite 3000MHz
2 x 525GB Crucial MX300 SSDs

Voltages will be monitored via a multi-meter and the AC power draw will be monitored via a power monitor when drew from the wall. For the idle test, the system will be simply booted up and let to run into windows and after 5 minutes when the power draw has levelled out, the readings will be taken.

To load and apply power to the power supply, a combination of IBT and Furmark will be run to put as much strain on the power supply as possible. After 10 minutes the readings will be taken and to ensure maximum strain, the CPU will be overclocked to 4.2GHz. Depending on the power of the power supply, multiple graphics cards could be used in line with how comfortable I feel the power supply will cope with such load. In the case of this unit, I didn’t have a 2nd RX 480 to hand for CrossFire.

ATX themselves specify that a fluctuation and variable of 5% is acceptable so to number crunch it means that:

3.3V = 3.135V-3.465V is acceptable
5V = 4.75V-5.25V is acceptable
12V = 11.4V – 12.6V is acceptable.

Any readings outside of these figures will be an automatic fail.

Conclusion

It’s very clear that the Kolink Continuum 1200w power supply is decent and from our ‘limited’ testing, everything appears to be fine. Although our method is a little unorthodox, it does allow us to get at least a rough idea on how a unit performs and this method hasn’t let us down so far; other big sites used to use this method before obtaining Sunmoon ATX testers worth a few grand, so I  believe that’s worth mentioning.

Anyway, the 3.3v/5v/12v performance on the Kolink Continuum 1200w is on point and if you were to ask ‘is the Kolink Continuum 1200 good?’ , my answer would be yes, especially for the current selling price of £189.95 at Overclockers UK (Click here to see the store listing). Another strong point of the Continuum 1200w is the amount of connections on offer. You have capabilities for up to 3 way SLI/Crossfire or 4-way dependent on the power inputs of your cards, thanks to the 6 x dual 6/8pin PCI-e power cables included; not bad at all.

The design of the power supply is questionable at times, but I have addressed that in the closer look and looking away from the issues I picked up, it’s actually a really nice unit. Of course, this comes down to personal taste and those looking for a bargain aren’t going to complain too much, but if you’re like me, you may expect a little bit more.

If you compare the pricing to other similar rated power supplies, the Kolink Continuum represents very good value for money. Some units include the EVGA Supernova P2 1200w which retails for £234.95, or even the SuperFlower Leadex Platinum 1200w at a fantastic £219.95; the Continuum smashes them on value by at least £30 which is nothing short of superb.

If you’re in the market for a good quality power supply, you require lots of power (1KW+) and have a budget of under £200, then the Kolink Continuum 1200w is a must buy. The design might be like marmite, but the quality and price are definitely worth shouting about!

Huge thanks to Kolink/Overclockers UK for sending the Kolink Continuum 1200w in for review.