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Thirteen PSU Roundup
Join the community - in the OCAU Forums!
Date 30th March 2005
Author James "Agg" Rolfe


Antec SmartBlue 350W, AcBel Intelligent Power 400W

Antec SmartBlue 350W:
In the same way that the TrueBlue is based on the TruePower series, so this SmartBlue is based on Antec's "Solution Series". This series of PSUs seems more targeted at mainstream users, rather than the extreme or enthusiast market like the TruePowers. This unit stands out from the other Solution Series models by including blue LEDs, again similarly to the TrueBlue.

Click to Enlarge   Click to Enlarge

Otherwise it's fairly basic, with no rear molex connector and no PCI-E power connector. It's not ATX 2.0 compliant, but is rated to 330W across the +5, +12 and +3.3 rails, with +5 and +3.3 rated to 230W together. Overall it's 350W, which is most likely plenty for the market it's aimed at.

Click to Enlarge   Click to Enlarge

The onboard fans are thermally controlled and this unit is very quiet during use, but it lacks the extra "Fan Only" cable from the TrueBlue and TrueControl. However it does have 7 molex, 2 floppy, 2 SATA and the 3 power connectors (20-pin, 4-pin and AT style).

AcBel Intelligent Power 400W:
AcBel Polytech Inc have some grand plans, if their website is to be believed: the AcBel Polytech Company is confident that it will become one of the top three suppliers of world-class power supplies within the next three years. I hadn't heard of them before they contacted me to look at their 400W unit.

Click to Enlarge   Click to Enlarge

It's nice enough looking, with a charcoal finish and gold fan grill. The single 12cm fan in the top of the unit is clear, and when the system is running, glows many different colours from the 4 LEDs around it. It's actually quite a pleasant effect, and the LEDs occasionally strobe as they change colour, which gives the illusion of the fan slowing down and speeding up. In use, the PSU is very quiet, but not totally silent.

Click to Enlarge   Click to Enlarge   Click to Enlarge

This unit arrived with no retail packaging, just the PSU and a converter to let the default 24-pin ATX power be used on normal 20-pin ATX motherboards. It includes both a 4-pin and an 8-pin ATX power connector also, as well as 6 molexes, 2 SATA and 2 floppies. The 8-pin connector is unusual - this PDF refers to it as "8-pin for CPU". I assume it's the 8-pin EPS12V AUX connector, as used on server motherboards (like the Tyan dual AthlonMP board in our database server, see the plug at bottom right in this pic.) Interestingly, a quick glance shows it to be probably physically compatible with the 6-pin PCI-E connector (only connecting 6 of the 8 pins) but I don't have a card to test it on.

Click to Enlarge

The molex connectors are "winged", similarly to the Rainbow LED Fan, to make removal easier. In the LED Fan review, I said "I'd be very happy to see these appearing on PSU molex connectors" and here they are. I had to cut one of the wings off to fit the connector into the power socket on the R9800 Pro used for testing, but that's easily done. This unit is ATX 2.0 compatible, so has two separate +12v lines - the PSU sticker rates +3.3 and +5 combined to 152W, +12v1 and +12v2 combined to 276W, all 4 of those together to 378W and a total across the whole PSU of 400W.



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