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- Date:
- Thursday , May 21, 2009
- Author:
- Paul Johnson
- Google +1
Topower PowerBird 800W Power Supply
Not too big, not too small, just right. Topower attempts to master the 800 watt range in computer power supplies which while becoming more of a standard wattage in the industry, is not always easy to do well. Will it nest in your next chassis or flip you a power bird?
Build Quality
As we already know the Topower PowerBird 800W features a single 120mm fan design that has come to be the preferred standard for quiet cooling environments due to the ability to move a larger volume of air at slower speeds than a smaller diameter fan.
While great for quiet computing environments the key criteria in our evaluation is whether or not the cooling solution is sufficient, rather than its sound level or form factor.
External Build Quality
Externally the newest member of the PowerBird family is identical to the previous members in every way. The finish is once more a highly polished mirror finish that, while attractive, is a magnet for fingerprints, smudges, scratches, and dents. The front of the unit is covered in the unit’s fully modular interface with the corresponding labels for which 12v rail feeds which connector. This is an excellent feature that is only rarely implemented by companies who market modular units and is something that really should become standard. One of the interesting points that we discover from the modular interface and cables is that you can only use 5 of the 6 PCI-Express connectors at a time! This particular issue is due to the fact that the unit ships with only one PCI-Express cable that has 2 connectors on it and there are 4 housing connectors for PCI-Express cables. I had to double check that arrangement 3 or 4 times since it literally made no sense but that really is how this unit shipped to us. Lastly, the rear of the unit houses the AC receptacle, power switch, and Active PFC light/label.
The Topower PowerBird 800W once more comes in at ~7 inches long while the modular cables provide a serviceable length of ~24 inches to the first or only connector. As we have come to expect from most Topower products all of the cables are sleeved completely (except for the 24pin ATX connector), and this time rather than using the plastic sleeving material on some cables all of them are black mesh. For whatever reason, while every connector is an 8 pin connector Topower has strung all the cables with 6 wires or fewer. This includes the 8 pin PCI-Express and EPS connector. So instead of doing it correctly and running all 8 wires for PCI-Express cables with the new 12v sense leads (or even two more grounds at a bare minimum) you get 2 grounds tapped off of two other grounds near the connector end. This is certainly far from the ideal way to pinout connectors.
Internal Build Quality
Once we open the PowerBird 800W we find that we are looking at the same design we saw in our Topower PowerBird series review previously. With the fan housing removed we once more can see that this particular Topower design uses a pair of 12v transformers (which has been the case on most of the high-powered Topower units we have seen for a while now), a pair of primary filtering capacitors, and is independently regulated. The fan charged with cooling this unit is once more a Sanyo Denki rated at 0.31A at 12v. Lastly, it should be noted that like the 900W and 1100W units the PCB soldering was not amazing but is also was NOT the train wreck we saw on the Topower built Tagan BZ1300, which is a relief.
Once more we see that the primary arrangement is such that the input filtering is on the housing in line with the primary side. The majority of the input filtering components are once more housed on the add-in PCB above the receptacle with the remainder on the main PCB. The bridge rectifier is just behind this input filtering and has its own small black heatsink. Moving further back still, we find the pair of primary capacitors (even though this is an APFC unit) used here are the same Toshin ones rated at 200v 1200uF 85c that were in the previous PowerBird units.
On the secondary side we find the coils along with the capacitors tucked in behind the large mass of wiring that results from having 6 12v rail leads. The wiring is all bundled tight with zip ties and the routing to the back of the modular interface is tidy all things considered. Thankfully, the modular interface is once more mostly clean with the only slightly less than great soldering on the power leads and the nuts (which still probably don't need to be soldered in place) like we saw on the other PowerBird units and is nothing like what we saw on the Tagan BZ1300. The secondary capacitors are unfortunately a huge step down from last time we saw this line as they are all from Topower’s grab bag of mystery being provided by Hermei like we saw with the Tagan BZ1300. In that case, the unit was very noisy either due to these capacitors, secondary design, or just the horrible construction of that particular unit. With this unit at least the construction is better, and the design has previously done well so we shall see if the Hermei capacitors can do well in our short visit with this unit today or if indeed they were the culprit last time. Lastly, if we look to the right of frame on the rear of the housing we see that the housing for this unit was originally cut to take the "Rail Fusion" switch we have seen on other Topower built units but it seems that the gimmick was omitted for all members of the PowerBird series currently released.
Build Quality Summary
Overall the build of the PowerBird 800W is good like we saw with the previous PowerBirds save for one big change. The overall fit and finish is once again very good with the only comments being that the mirrored finish does become damaged easily, and the way the 8-pin connectors are wired. I am more than a little surprised at the absolutely dumb way the 8-pin connectors are only strung with 6 wires and then split back again at the 8-pin peripheral end on this unit for no apparent reason given that the unit is wired for 8-pin connectors on the units housing. I mean we have 8-pin connectors on both ends, use them. Anyway, once we move to the interior not a whole lot changes from the 900W and 1100w PowerBird units except for the secondary capacitor choice. Why Topower dropped Toshin for Hermei is unknown but moving from Japanese electrolytics to no-name Chinese ones is hardly reassuring. Sure this unit is only 800 watts, but still this is not a smart move. Our previous experience with a unit sporting Hermei capacitors was with the BZ1300 and that unit was certainly noisier than what we saw with the other PowerBird units even at comparable power output levels. So, let's now move on and see how this change affects the 800W PowerBird.