15-Day Usage
The COUGAR GLE 1000 has been in our PC for more than 15 days, used for casual use, work, and gaming. During this period, I’ve played a couple of games including Battlefield 6. Still, the most strenuous load for the PSU done on this period would still be the mixed workload test – a mixture and/or combination of several benchmarking tools including 3DMark benchmarks, Unigene Valley, Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, CINEBENCH and others. Hence, there are no abnormalities experienced in terms of power supplied to the computer by the GLE 1000 PSU.
The test computer's configuration is as follows below which is on an open-frame testbench. Our testing is done using 230V household voltage.
CPU: Intel Core i7-13700K (5.3GHz)
Cooling: Noctua NH-D15 G2
Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS EXTREME X
Graphics Card: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 EAGLE OC / COLORFUL iGame GeForce RTX 4060 Ti
Memory: ADATA XPG Lancer DDR5-8000 32GB Kit
Storage: ADATA Legend 960 Max 1TB / 2TB Seagate SkyHawk 5900 RPM
Cooling: Noctua NH-D15 G2
Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS EXTREME X
Graphics Card: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 EAGLE OC / COLORFUL iGame GeForce RTX 4060 Ti
Memory: ADATA XPG Lancer DDR5-8000 32GB Kit
Storage: ADATA Legend 960 Max 1TB / 2TB Seagate SkyHawk 5900 RPM
Voltage Regulation Testing
We test PSU voltage regulation using a multimeter alongside a high-precision wattmeter and power analyser connected to the +12V, +5V, and +3.3V output rails. Three +12V lines are measured separately: one from the PCIe cable, one from the EPS cable, and one from the peripherals cable. A system-wide wattmeter is also used to record total power draw. A combination of different software and additional hardware, like cooling fans, has been used to generate different wattage loads. Our current testing setup reached a peak load of 635W.
Results
Voltage Regulation
The COUGAR GLE 1000 demonstrated excellent voltage regulation, maintaining fluctuations within roughly 1% across varying loads. Our test system, powered by the Intel Core i7-13700K, is notably demanding—drawing around 250W at full load. While a slight voltage sag was observed on the EPS rail at around 60% system load (~635W), it remained well within the normal regulation range, reflecting the PSU’s solid electrical stability under stress.
Acoustics
The COUGAR GLE 1000 is equipped with a 135 mm fluid dynamic bearing (FDB) fan that operates continuously for consistent cooling. Using a sound meter, the PSU registered a modest 47 dBA, which is about the same as the ambient noise level in a quiet room. In practical use, the GLE 1000 is virtually inaudible within a gaming setup, especially when paired with a triple-fan graphics card, which easily becomes the dominant source of system noise. Also, the GLE 1000 features Cybenetic’s Lamdba certification wherein it scored a A-, meaning it operates at less than or equal to 25 dB(A) & <30 dB(A) noise levels.
