Zippy/Emacs 500w & 720w PSUs

PSU - Power Supply Units 108 Page 1 of 7 Published by

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Introduction

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Zippy/Emacs 500w (HP2-6500P) & 720w (PSL-6720P) PSUs
Info: zippy.com.tw

Introduction
When you hear the name Zippy, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Quite possibly it's the funky character from the TV series Rainbow...

Copyright 2006 Guru3D.com

*Ahem* Apologies for my warped sense of humour! (Hilbert: that's just mean man!). Now, today I want to introduce to you a completely different Zippy - the power supply Gurus.

Founded in April 1983, Zippy Technology Corporation started out designing switches. This was a success and in 1993 the company introduced a new power division, which brought us the products we will be looking at today.

Some of you may have heard of the company, but most of you will not. You see, the way the computer industry is today, you need to put a lot of effort into promotion of your flashy and sexy looking products to get noticed by enthusiasts. If I look around our forums and stumble across a thread asking about which brand of PSU would be good to get, you get pointed in the direction of Antec, Enermax & OCZ, amongst others. These are names that have stuck in people's heads as good PSUs to get because they have a good range of well-promoted and attractive looking products. With the above in mind, this is probably why you haven't heard of Zippy.

Their products have been primarily aimed at the server market since the beginning. This means first and foremost that their products are of a high quality since they are to be used in a server environment where reliability is of the utmost importance. On the other hand, this also means that Zippy PSUs used to have a very dull appearance with their metal coloured exterior and unsleeved cables. Whilst these two features are unimportant in terms of performance, people are now well aware of how important their choice of PSU is, and they also want the product to look the part. Even if the dull grey unit in the corner that looks like a generic 300w PSU was the best unit around, I'm pretty sure nobody would buy it because of the way it looked! It's quite wrong really, but that's the way the enthusiast community is now. The only exception to this "rule" might be the experienced overclockers who value performance over aesthetics and that's how it should be.

So what am I getting at here? Zippy have given their PSUs a face lift, if you like. They have been updated to move with the times. Zippy have introduced a range of PSUs with the title of "Gaming Power," they have been given a chic black finish and the cables have been sleeved. Inside, however, are still the same core components that have earned Zippy their excellent reputation in the server market. I'm pleased to say that they haven't gone over the top and given their PSUs modular cables. I know a lot of you reading this like modular cable systems and I agree it may look better in terms of cable management, but these are serious PSUs and the manufacturer knows their target market of high-end (extreme) users/overclockers and server admins probably don't care for such things. A modular interface adds resistance and thus reduces the performance of the power supply because the voltages drop. It isn't much but it is something to bear in mind. Constant plugging and unplugging of cables could also cause problems over time due to loose connections, obviously any connection point is a potential point of failure. This isn't a problem for most, but again if you bear in mind who these products are aimed at it, they'd rather have the performance over the functionality. It just means you need to learn how to tidy cables in the conventional method rather than simply unplugging any cables you don't need.

Moving onto today's products then, we have the regular sized 500w and the quite frankly freaking massive 720w model. We will show you both individually of course. We'll also include a couple of shots of the size difference between the two models and also the dimensions of the 720w so you can tell if it'll actually fit in your case. As much as I would dearly love to be able to give these PSUs a workout, the test system is not going to strain these units in any way, really. We will include test results but this review is really just to make you aware of the company and it's products and to give you a close-up on them.

Let's go... Next page please.

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