Cougar VTE 500w Power Supply Review

A Closer Look

At first glance, the Cougar VTE looks fairly unmarkable. Now, admittedly, power supplies are, generally speaking, designed to impress in performance rather than aesthetics.

Despite the rather plain impression, however, that doesn’t mean that Cougar hasn’t thrown in a few aesthetic touches.

Firstly, you have a nice large logo which has been embossed into the metal on the side. This is a nice touch as many other manufacturers might’ve just plumped for a (much more inexpensive) sticker.

Secondly, and perhaps most obviously, you have this nice angular fan design with the Cougar logo directly placed in the center. Even this itself has been covered with a film so that, when you peel it, it looks as perfect as the day it rolled off the machine.

On the other side of the power supply, you have the full technical specifications of the power supply including the wattage output and the bronze-rated efficiency certificate!

Finally, the rear of the power supply provides some nice and large ventilation areas that practically encompass the entire panel. This should, all going well, promote a nice clean airflow ensuring things run nice and cool.

Cabling

I must admit, despite the positives so far, I do have some criticisms to make about the cabling. Firstly, it’s ugly to look at! It carries that orange and yellow colouring well-associated with inexpensive power supplies that, quite simply, doesn’t look particularly attractive in a system build.

Yes, you can minimise this with good cable management, but there we hit another problem. The cables are not overly long. While I didn’t specifically measure them, at roughly 40cm-60cm in length you may not have much ‘wiggle-room’ to get these threaded where you’d ideally like them.

Don’t get me wrong, they seem perfectly fine. On an aesthetic level, however, I can’t say that I’m a fan.

Internals – A Look Inside!

Getting to the internals, we have a tidy if not exactly appealing presentation. Nothing looks wrong or out of place, but it’s clearly been put together, as best as possible, to meet a very specific budgetary target.

A good example of this is the ‘overspray’ of the black seen in the internal metal panelling.

The fan itself is a fairly standard 120mm design. As this is a power supply, it shouldn’t run fast and, by proxy, should remain largely inconspicuous while it does its job.

A closer look at the components within the PCB is more than a little encouraging to the quality of the design process. Components are well spaced out and, in addition, with the heatsinks taking a central location, should provide some decent cooling performance.

In regards to the capacitor, I’ve hit a bit of a problem. Cougar lists the VTE as having a “105°C Japanese Standby Capacitor”. The problem is, I don’t really know what they mean by that. I’ve heard the terminology ‘Japanese Capacitor’ or ‘Main Japanese capacitor’, but I’m not quite sure what a ‘standby’ capacitor is.

So, here’s a picture of the main capacitor. Is it Japanese? In truth, I have no idea. There does appear to be a manufacturers mark, but it’s not one I’ve encountered before and Google didn’t provide me with any solutions either.

Based on the specifications I can see, however, it does appear to be of a decent quality which, generally speaking, nearly always means its probably Japanese.

Overall Thoughts!

So, overall, my impressions of the Cougar VTE is that this is a no-thrills power supply designed to do its job in a very quiet and humble manner. It doesn’t come with any huge aesthetic bells and whistles, but quite frankly, it doesn’t have it. It’s a power supply!

Admittedly, the aesthetics and functionality issues are a problem for me and, as I said earlier, it does carry many of the hallmarks of being designed within and for a specific budget. In terms of there being anything that has me concerned though? Nope, it looks perfectly solid to me!