Appearance I
A heavy parcel arrived at the labs a few days ago. Enter the Zalman ZM400A-APF PSU.
Tipping the scales at 2.85kg, it's far heavier than the PCToys 420w PSU we reviewed recently. The PSU was well packaged inside with little chance of problems arising in transit.
Apart from the PSU itself, you're supplied with the following accessories.
A 2-pin power lead (no good in this country), a small but well written instruction manual in English and Chinese, 2 sets of velcro straps that should help keep the cabling in place, and a nifty Multi-Connector, the ZM-MC1.
The MC1 connects to a regular Molex connection on one side and to 4 3-pin fan connections on the other. The two white connections give 5v and the 2 black connections offer 12v support. Pretty handy if you want to run a couple of quieter fans. It also should help in tidying up some internal cabling. Strangely, no mounting screws were included in the package. That seems to be a rather obvious omission.
The PSU is a stylish black affair. Unlike the PCToys' PSU, this one uses a standard steel housing. The advantage that it has over many of its rivals is the use of only one cooling fan, thereby reducing overall noise output.
The regular 20-pin ATX connector, a 4-pin 12v connector, and an auxiliary connector give it the required connections for today's motherboards. A further 7 Molex connectors are present with a single floppy-style connector thrown in. I'd have liked to have seen a second floppy connector included. The cables are either great or poor, depending on your requirements. A total length of 18" makes them perfect if avoiding clutter is your primary aim. Tower case users, though, may smirk at the relatively small cable length. Horses for courses, I guess.
Let's now take a closer look at the PSU on the following page.
