Sparkle Gold Class 1000W Power Supply
Aug 10th, 2010 | By AnthonyBeing an 80 Plus Gold rated power supply it appropriately comes in a gold color themed package. Thanks to the loving care and dedication of the courier folk of the world, our sample arrived not flattened, but only a bit roughed up.
But not to worry, there’s plenty of room for foam and packaging materials to keep the unit safe.
Inside, we have a bag of modular cables, the power cord, Velcro cable wraps, documentation and the Gold Class Series 1000W power supply.
The unit is a bit different than what we’ve ever seen in the past here. Besides the fact that it’s our first 80 Plus Gold unit, it’s also the first unit we’ve seen styled in purple. I guess it does have an appeal, but personally I’ve grown quite fond of subtlety.
The large 140mm fan on the bottom of the unit should do an excellent job acting as an exhaust for the computer system, and cooling the power supply by drawing air from the case into the power supply and then through the perforated black end.
And speaking of back of the unit, it’d be a great time to note that this unit doesn’t use a typical AC cord. Careful not to lose it!
Having a look at the connectors, we have a few leads attached to the unit itself- these are not modular. Of course, these typically do not need to be detached. We have a 20+4 pin ATX motherboard connector, then a 4+4 pin motherboard connector.
Next up, the PCI Express connectors; the unit supplies four 6+2 pin PCI Express connectors.
Twelve SATA connectors might seem to be a bit absurd, but why not? It’s modular! And, it’s only absurd until you actually need that many.
Lastly, we have twelve more connectors, the 4 pin peripheral connectors.
Of course we’re not just going to dabble about on the outsides, let’s pop the unit open.
With the rise of 80 Plus Gold and 80 Plus Silver units it is more and more uncommon to see enormous slabs of finned heatsinks we’ve become accustomed to over the years. Of course, we’re no longer dealing with the same amount of heat in the first place.
Throughout the unit Sparkle uses Teapo capacitors. They’re not Nippon Chemi-cons, but Teapo definitely has a reliable enough track record to not be concerned.
