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Introduction:::...
The
current trend in power supplies seems to be for ever bigger
capacities. Not that bigger capacities are a bad thing necessarily,
at least not if you have need for them, it's just that not
everyone needs, or even wants to equip their PC with in
excess of half a kilowatt of power supply, the vast majority
of which will never be called on to do anything.
Fortunately
not every company is blowing their entire R&D budget
creating power supplies that could run small towns, a few
still have the emphasis very much on either looks, quality,
or both, and the power supply I want to look at today falls
very much into that "both" category.
Spawned
from a company who have genuinely taken the power supply
industry by storm with a brace of awards and commendations,
the Tagan i-Xeye is a relatively lowly 420 watt unit, but
with a difference. Built with the case modder in mind, it
comes equipped with dual LED illuminated 80mm cooling fans
and a transparent, blue LED-lit acrylic window that doesn't
even impact its electromagnetic performance enough to stop
it achieving its CE certification.
First,
you guessed it, the specs:
- ATX12V
Version 1.3 and downwards compatible.
- Patented
20 to 24 pin motherboard connector and 4 to 8 pin P4 connector
(Intel Pentium 4 & AMD K7/K8 CPU compatible)
- 1
(one) independent VGA graphics card output to get the
most out of your graphics card.
- PCI
Express connector to power the latest graphics card that
require PCI Express connection
- 2
(two) Serial-ATA (Advance Technology Attachment) hard
disk-connectors built-in
- TSCT:
Tagan Silence Control Technology with push-pull Dual-Fans
for whispering operation of 21~22dBA (up to 60% Load)
-
Illuminate clear chassis CE certified.
- +12V/22A
supporting more Peripheral-Devices
- +5VSB
stand-by supplying up to 2.5A(continuous)
- Power
Switch with Rubber Protection Cover for more security
- Universal
wide-range input of 95-250 VAC
We
may as well take this opportunity to remond ourselvces about
some of Tagan's key features.
Gold
Plated Connectors: Hardly an essential feature but a
nice one all the same. Gold is an excellent conductor and
plating the conductors in gold will help but it's not quite
as essential a feature as it would be on an audio connector
for example.
Twisted
Wires: Not really my field of expertise but I do know
that twisting the cables can reduce EMI quite significantly.
The tightness of the twists can be pretty critical in how
effective this method works so I'll just have to trust that
the guys have done their homework. What I can say for certain
is that twisted cables do look neater.
Ground
Wire: Power supplies very often ground through their
casing which screws to the chassis anyway so I'm not certain
what the benefits of a separate ground wire are if any.
Tagan state it improves stability so unless you can enlighten
me otherwise I'll have to assume they're right.
Rubber
Switch Protection: This is an interesting one, and one
that has me a bit baffled. I don't imagine it's to keep
dust out as this would most likely ingress from inside anyway
if it's going to. Nor do I envisage too many instances where
I'll be operating the switch with wet hands. I guess I'll
have to go with the premise that any protection beats none,
though I wish I'd remembered that before my first was born!
Black
Anodized Heat Sink: Black surfaces radiate and absorb
heat better according to Stefan-Boltzmann
and thus a black heat sink should be more efficient at cooling
the internal components. In actual practice, black is probably
only more efficient under low airflow situations which,
in the case of a thermally or load controlled fan, will
be more often than would normally be the case otherwise.
Anodizing is considered more effective than painting as
the original surface material is retained and thus the actual
surface treatment can't retain heat as an undesirable side
effect.
Wide
Range Input: Some power supplies require you to throw
a selector switch based on the voltage used in your country.
Others accept voltages in a couple of ranges, usually around
90 to 130V then 190 to 265V. In the Tagan's case the input
voltage can be absolutely any value between 95 and 250 volt
and the power supply will operate normally.
Active
PFC: Let's keep this one simple. When a power supply
consumes power, not all of it is being used productively,
some of it is simply wasted. The more efficiently your power
supply makes use of the power it draws the higher its efficiency
and the lower the waste, and thus the lower your electricity
bills.
PFC,
or Power Factor Correction, is used to fine tune the timings
of the circuit so that working power and total power consumed
are as closely matches as possible. In a perfect circuit
the PF would be 1.0 (100%). An average power supply with
the less efficient passive PFC would have a PF value of
about 0.75 (75%) while equipment with no PFC would score
about 0.5 (50%).
The
T480-U01 uses active-PFC and rates at up to 0.99 (99%).
OCP,
OVP, SCP, ESD: The "deadly 4". The T420-U02
provides inbuilt protection against over-current, over-voltage
and short-circuit damage. It also shrugs off electro static
discharges up to 3000V.
Noise
Control: Most power supplies these days come with some
kind of thermal fan control to help minimise noise. Tagan
use what they call "TSCT" or Tagan Silence Control
technology, which it's claimed offers an operational volume
of only 22dBA at up to 60% load rising to a mere 33dBA when
flat out.
DC
Output: It's a lot easier to make a power supply and
its price tag look good by offering fairly tame DC outputs.
That's clearly not the case with the Tagan as, although
you can find slightly higher +3.3V outputs if you look hard
enough, the 48A available on the +5V line is bordering on
scary.
By
some standards I have to say that the 12V rating of 22 Amps,
while perfectly ample for just about all of us, is starting
to look a little low compared to supplies like OCZ's Powerstream
which offers 30 Amps on the 420watt model and 33 Amps on
the 470 and 520 Watt models. Also, the 42 Amps on the +5V
line is far larger than most of us will ever need.
The
combined rating of 220 watts on the combined +3.3 and +5
volt rails is a clue to the fact that these are shared rather
than discrete outputs.
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PSU
Ratings
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