Interior Impressions


After voiding each and every part of the warranty associated with the Zeus 1200W, we find a black plastic shroud over most of the interior structure. This is used to direct the airflow from the single 80mm fan over the components instead to other parts of the interior. After this shroud is removed we find that the layout of the Zeus is based around a pair of PCBs sandwiched together which accomplishes the goal of cramming as many components as possible into a compact area.


Believe it or not, even though this is quite a long power supply, both interior PCBs are not that large and there is quite a bit of wiggle room in there. The one thing which should catch anyone’s attention is the unique way the modular interface is designed. Instead of having each individual wire soldered to a secondary PCB which then transfers current to the modular interface, Silverstone terminates the wires at individual female-type connectors which form the modular interface. This eliminates the risk of shoddy soldering on the modular interface (like we have seen in the past with other manufacturers’ units) contributing to instability of the power supply.


The primary transformer is a full-bridge 1200W affair which handles the +12V output. Next to this massive transformer is a quartet of 45A, 600V Fairchild rectifiers which are attached to their own separate aluminum heatsink to disperse the heat they generate.


Two of these vertical PCBs and the components installed on them are used to control the +5 and +3.3V outputs on the Zeus 1200W and each one is attached to its own aluminum heatsink. There is also a tunable POT on a third PCB but no matter which way we turned it, there was no difference in rail outputs or in the fan speed. We will continue to experiment with this so stay tuned to our forum thread where we will post any updates.

While most of the caps used on the primary PCB are Nippon Chemi-Con 105*C units, the +5V rail gets a number of solid caps which are supposed have a much longer life than standard electrolyte capacitors.


The +12V filtering is largely handled by a pair of large chokes. Interestingly, when looking at shots of the actual production units, these chokes had the copper wound much tighter around their frames. This means that the Zeus 1200W power supplies which are available at retail stores may have slightly different filtering than we experienced.