Cabling Arrangement

Cougar includes a strong list of cables and connectors with the GX800, but they could be better. All four peripheral cables feature both SATA and Molex connectors on them, meaning you can't have strictly SATA connectors in your case. It gets even more confusing with the ATX/EPS12V cable that sits on multiple rails with each connector. Aside from that, the unit offers up 12 SATA connectors and six Molex connectors with four PCI-E cables to feed your video cards.

Rail distribution looks very complicated, but it isn't as bad as it looks once you take the time to understand the ATX/EPS12V cable. Removing it from the equation we find that 12V1 takes care of the Main and all of the peripheral connectors. 12V3 and 12V4 each take care of three of the PCI-E connectors. Looking at the ATX/EPS12V cable, it starts off with an EPS12V connector that is fed off of 12V2 and 12V3. This splits off to an ATX 4+4 connector that is fed only off of 12V2. Finally, this splits off to an ATX 4 pin connector that is fed off of 12V2 as well.

This is a great design as it gives you some additional flexibility in balancing the rails should you need it. Unfortunately it isn't documented anywhere that we could find and we were only able to find all of this out by cracking open the power supply of which most consumers wouldn't be willing to do or probably shouldn't do.

A Look Inside

Taking the top off, we find several heatsinks that provide passive cooling for the unit. The branded heatsink is a nice touch on something that very few will ever even see.

A single Rubycon capacitor covers the primary side of the Cougar GX800 power supply.

Teapo capacitors can be found on the secondary side of the PSU. With the quality that Cougar has throughout the rest of the power supply, it was rather surprising to see these when looking inside.

Cougar uses their own 140mm Vortex fan, model PLA14025S12M, to cool the GX800. The Vortex fan features several things that help cool the power supply. The grooved blades help focus air flow and provide optimum cooling efficiency and the turbine blades on the back help provide optimum airflow, air pressure and extremely silent performance.