INTRODUCTION

    With the recent graphics cards releases by AMD, NVIDIA and Intel 2025 has probably influenced more people to change their power supplies than any before it. Yes, the new ATX 3.1 & PCie 5.1 standards have also helped since they do bring many improvements to the table compared to their predecessors (prior to 3.0 and 5.0 that is) but if not for those cards (and the 12VHPWR/12V-2X6 connectors required by some) power supply unit sales would be significantly lower. Montech today launched their latest power supply unit called the Century II and for the past week I've been testing the top 1200W variant.

    Telon Co., Ltd. has been engaged in Taiwan's PC industry for more than 30 years. And its team includes experienced engineers & designers and after-sales personnel. MONTECH was established by Telon in 2016, which focuses in the PC gaming market. MONTECH is quite successful in the Taiwanese market. It is now seeking to expand to the world. There are four pillars of our core values, we abbreviate them to four simple letters, SSEC. <Simplicity>, <Safety>, <Easy To Use> and <Customer-Trust>. SSEC is how we do everything, like designing products, manufacturing, communicating with customers, it is our deepest values here in Montech.

    As its name states the Century II is the successor to the Century and Century G5 lines of power supply units by Montech and includes 850/1050/1200W output models all of which are fully modular and 80 PLUS Gold certified (performance actually touches Platinum specifications). The 1200W unit which I've been testing for just over a week now features a single 12V-2x6 power connector (600W), three 6+2 pin PCIe power connectors, single strong +12V rail (100A) capable of delivering 100% of the units’ total power output (1200W) and a peak power output of no less than 1338W (peak should now be up to around 2.5KW for up to 100ms - once again however this is not something i can test). The Century II line also sports half-bridge LLC with DC to DC design, active PFC, smart zero fan mode for its 135mm fan (starts spinning after a certain load), high-quality Japanese capacitors certified for use up to 105 degrees Celsius and a full array of electrical protections including over-current (OCP), over-voltage (OVP), under-voltage (UVP), short-circuit (SCP), over-temperature (OTP) and over-power (OPP). Finally, Montech once again shows their confidence in their products by covering the Century II line with a 10-year limited warranty.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

A product picture, company logo and several certifications are all printed at the front of the box.

3 graphs showcasing efficiency and fan noise are located on the left side.

The product features are located at the base of the box in 10 languages.

At the rear of the box, we find the features and specifications of the Century II 1200W right next to its available power connectors.

Typically, the Century II 1200W is placed between two pieces of foam.

Along with the Century II 1200W and its power cord inside the box you'll also find the modular power cables, storage pouch, 5 cable ties, 5 cable straps, 4 mounting screws and the user manual.

THE CENTURY II 1200W EXTERIOR

The modular cables including the 12V-2x6 one feature PVC shielded cables.

Measuring 150mm in length, 140mm in width and 86mm in height the Century II 1200W is among the new compact high-output models.

Montech has placed a nice looking grille over the 135mm fan (one piece with the left and right sides).

Both the product name and the company name and logo are placed on the sides.

Like with most past models the electrical table is printed on a large sticker at the base of the enclosure.

All 12 modular power ports are tagged.

Moving at the rear we find the power port, on/off switch and the smart zero fan mode switch. 

THE CENTURY II 1200W INTERIOR

Hong Hua is once again behind the fan used with the Century II 1200W (2300RPM).

Interior layout is clean overall and as for the OEM this time over Montech has used XWY (Shenzhen Xinweiye Technology Co., Ltd).

The two primary capacitors are manufactured by Nippon Chemi-Con and are certified for use up to 105 degrees Celsius.

Secondary capacitors are manufactured by Nippon Chemi-Con, rubycon and Toshin Kogyo and are again certified for use up to 105 degrees.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

     Using a dedicated measurement instrument such as a Chroma or a SunMoon to test power supply units is without doubt the most ideal and accurate way (not to mention the fastest) to do that currently. However, it's certainly not the only way there is and so pretty much anyone can test a power supply unit just by using a test rig. Certainly, limitations do apply and so you can't really push a 1000W power supply to its limits if your system only uses 500W at peak loads and that's why over the years we saved certain hardware components for the purpose of building a dedicated PSU test rig. True it may not be as accurate as the above mentioned solutions but it comes really close and is in fact much closer to real world usage. So as always, we ran several games with maximum graphic options enabled at a resolution of 2560x1600 in order to stress every hardware component and increase the overall power demands of the system. The Passmark BurnIn Test was also used to overstress the components in an effort to provide the most accurate results possible. As a final test we also used the latest OCCT 4.4 software and its dedicated PSU testing suite since it can really bring a power supply to its knees after inside a few minutes.

   Rail stability was checked/measured with the CPUID Hardware monitor and a Metex multimeter which also recorded the system load in idle and in load. As always try to remember that the power consumption numbers listed in the graph are the highest (Peak) ones recorded during the entire duration of the tests and not the average ones. Noise levels coming from the fan were recorded using the high precision HD600 ExTech Sound dBA Meter from the rear of the unit and at a range of no more than 5-10cm. Readings under load are recorded the exact moment we manually switch the fans of all graphics cards from full speed to almost zero, that way the fan of the power supply does not have enough time to slow its RPM and so by doing this we get very accurate noise level readings. Needless to say, in order to get 100% accurate readings, you need to have a noise isolated room for that exact purpose, something which is quite impossible unless you are working inside a real lab (some people use very small noise insulated boxes but due to their size both heat and noise exceed normal levels and so the results can't really be considered to be 100% accurate, nor realistic for that matter). Also do take into account that since all noise measurements take place from just 5-10cm away the final noise levels to reach your ears will be considerably less.

* After well over 10 years of testing PSUs the Intel Core i7-920 CPU of this rig failed and so we replaced it with a Xeon X5660 (we also swapped the GA-X58A-UD7 for the G1. Assassin).

TEST RESULTS

CONCLUSION

    The Century II 1200W is the very first power supply unit to arrive in the office manufactured by XWY and well, I had my doubts at first.  Luckily performance ended up being solid across the board with very good rail stability even at load and noise levels comparable to those by much more expensive units (as usual smart zero RPM mode was turned off for my tests). The fact that the Century II 1200W is also 80 PLUS Gold certified and almost hits the Platinum standards also says a lot about its quality as does the 10-year limited warranty Montech covers it with. I would have liked to see individually braided modular cables but since this isn’t a high-end model I guess I’m just nitpicking.

    Since the Century II line of power supplies by Montech was released just today availability is low, still the 1200W output model is available in the USA  for USD129.90 (Amazon.com), a price tag which is better than expected. Performance, output, noise, protections, warranty, and price, I really have nothing to complain about the Montech Century II 1200W which is why it gets the Golden Award.

PROS

- Good Build Quality
- Solid Rail Stability
- ATX 3.1 & PCIe 5.1 (600W 12V-2x6 Connector)
- 80 PLUS Gold Certified
- Electrical Protections (OCP/OVP/SSP/OPP/UVP/OTP)
- Single Strong +12V Rail (100A)
- Smart Zero Fan Mode
- 10 Year Limited Warranty
- Price (USA)

CONS

- Current Availability
- OEM Manufacturer (For Some)