Topic: Power Supplies
Product: Seasonic S12 - 430
Supplier: Seasonic
Date: December 28, 2004
Reviewer: K. Elliott

Introduction

It used to be we took our power supplies pretty much for granted that ugly box that had a mass of wires running out of it which we relegated to the top portion of our cases and pretty much forgot all about. Times have certainly changed with the current processors and video card demanding more and more current as we try to make do with power supplies that were never intended to operate under the types of loads we are punishing them with today.

Every day you can go into any forum and see a post that asks a question like "why does my system fail to run or my system re-boots all the time, I'm only running two 7,200 rpm hard drives, 3 GHz processor, 1 GB of memory and six case fans, two CD burners, along with 120mm fan on my heatsink. I know my 400 watt power supply is good because it worked perfectly when I overclocked my Intel 300A four or five years ago.

As you can imagine he either is pushing the envelope on this power supply or perhaps his power supply has just reached its life expectancy and is slowly dieing. Yes power supplies do die, just like humans the components that make up a power supply begin to change with age. The biggest culprit will be the electrolytic capacitors which begin to dry out over time. This can have some rather unsettling effects on your system. Since the purpose of those capacitors is to filter the AC hum of the line as it is converted to DC before it enters your computer you can image what happens when a noisy impure signal reaches the motherboard. Keeping this simple - lets just say things can get ugly in a hurry.

Another thing to consider when purchasing a power supply is how efficient it is.  A good way to show this is to use standard equation to figure efficiency of a power supply. To do this you divide the DC Output by the AC input.

Here is a pretty simple example but it gets the point across. Lets take a power supply with an efficiency of 68%, to achieve 300 watts DC out put you will need 441 watts of AC input, of those 441 watts - 141 watts will be lost to heat due to the poor efficiency. Now let look at a power supply that is 80% efficient, you will need 375 watts of AC input to achieve 300 DC output, but of that 375 watts of AC input only 75 watts of it were lost to heat. So you can see the efficiency of your next power supply should be a major part of decision making when it come time to buying one.

About Seasonic

Seasonic S12 - 430 Watt Power Supply

- power supply shown inverted -

Features

	Optimal solution for low noise, cooling and high reliability.
	Conserves energy & our environment.
	Reduces noise without increasing temperature.
	Doubles the airflow & lifetime with 1/2 the RPM & noise.
	Maximizes ventilation to minimize heat and noise.
	Advanced design for highest reliability & efficiency.
	Plug & run safely anywhere in the world.
	Our commitment to superior quality.
Dual +12V Outputs	Double +12 volt outputs for increased safety and twice the applications.
	Makes the PC tidy & neat and enhances the system cooling. Twisted and Tidy Wires Patented Easy Swap Connectors

Specification