We decided to disassemble this power supply to see how it looks like inside, what is the design used and what components are used. Please read our Anatomy of Switching Power Supplies tutorial to understand how a power supply works inside and to compare this power supply to others.
In this page we will have an overall look, while on the next page we will discuss in details the quality and rating of the components used.
This power supply uses a dual-transformer design, as you can see on the pictures below (traditionally power supplies use only one transformer). In theory this design enables the power supply to deliver more current to its secondary. This same design is used on some other power supplies we’ve seen like StarTech.com WattSmart 650 W, Tagan TurboJet TG1100-U95 1,100 W and Enermax Galaxy 1000 W.
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Figure 4: Overall look.
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Figure 5: Overall look.
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Figure 6: Overall look.
As we mentioned on other articles and reviews, the first place we like to take a look when opening a power supply to have a hint about its quality is its filtering stage. The recommend components for this stage are two ferrite coils, two ceramic capacitors (Y capacitors, usually blue), one metalized polyester capacitor (X capacitor) and one MOV (Metal-Oxide Varistor). Very low-end power supplies use fewer components than that, usually removing the MOV and the first coil.
This power supply stage is flawless, as it has two Y capacitors and one X capacitor more than needed, plus a ferrite ring on the main power cable.
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Figure 7: Transient filtering stage (part 1).
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Figure 8: Transient filtering stage (part 2).
Now let’s have a more detailed discussion on the components used on Real Power Pro 850 W.
