|
Lets begin by looking at the Fortron 530 watt power supply. Since Fortron power
supplies are synonymous to Sparkle and vice versa, I'll be referring to these power supplies as
Fortron. These power supplies are high quality units comparable to name brand units like Antec, Enermax,
and various other brands like RaidMax.
Let's crackthat steel encasing of the 530w PSU and take a look at the following pictures:
As you can see this power supply is packed with two massive aluminum heatsinks and has two
80mm fans circulating air throughout the entire unit. Air circulation is decent; I put my hand
in front of the exhaust and intake of both fans and move a nice amount of air. After several
hours of operation the air coming out of the power supply is still cool, not as warm as my Antec.
As a comparison, let's look at the Antec's internal guts:
Antec's heatsinks are not as large as the Fortron, but these heatsinks have more fins and
provide more surface area than the Fortron. When youthe Antec power supply I was shocked
to find the fans were not made by Antec, instead, those fans were made by some no name brand.
For a side by side comparison, the specifications of the Antec are as follows. Note that all the
connectors are gold plated:
 |
Antec TruePower 550w |
 |
|
+5v 40A,+12V 24A, +3.3 32A, -5V .5A, -12V 1A, +5V SB 2.0A
|
|
1 x 20 pin ATX motherboard connector
|
|
2 x 2 pin molex connectors for fans
|
|
1 x 3 pin connector for 90 mm underbelly fan monitoring
|
|
1 x 4 pin 12v connector
|
|
1 x 6 pin Auxillary connector
|
|
7 x 4 pin molex connectors
|
|
2 x 4 pin floppy connectors
|
|
The only extra feature the Antec PSU came with is that the ATX motherboard connector was sleeved.
The Fortron PSU has gold plated connectors, sleeved ATX motherboard connector, a different
style molex connector that acts as a handle and stopper so you don't push the connector in
too far to your peripheral, and a Serial ATA power connector. Finally the amperes as well
as the connectors are the following:
 |
Fortron/Sparkle's 530w PSU |
 |
|
+5v 40A,+12V 18A, +3.3 28A, -5V .3A, -12V .8A, +5V SB 2.0A
|
|
1 x 20 pin ATX motherboard connector
|
|
1 4 pin 12v connector
|
|
6 4 pin molex connectors
|
|
1 x 4 pin 12v connector
|
|
2 4 pin floppy connector
|
|
1 Serial ATA connector
|
|
The difference of only 20 watts between the two power supply has a pretty big toll.
As you can see, The Fortron PSU is slightly inferior to the Antec according to the amps.
|