Topower is a traditional OEM manufacturer, being the real manufacturer behind units from brands like Tagan and OCZ (not all power supplies from OCZ are manufactured by Topower, though). They also sell power supplies using their own brand and today we are going to review their PowerBird 900 W unit, which uses a full modular cabling system and is based on a two-transformer design. Let’s see whether this is a good unit or not.
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Figure 1: Topower PowerBird 900 W power supply.
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Figure 2: Topower PowerBird 900 W power supply.
PowerBird 900 W is a long power supply, being 6 57/64” (17.5 cm) deep, using a 120-mm fan on its bottom and featuring active PFC, of course. But what is really different about this power supply is its fully modular cabling system. Usually when manufacturers say their products have a modular cabling system, the main motherboard cable and usually the ATX12V/EPS12V cable come directly from inside the power supply, not using the modular system. This does not happen with PowerBird 900 W, where even the main motherboard cable is attached to the modular system.
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Figure 3: Topower PowerBird 900 W power supply.
All cables use a nylon protection and all wires are 18 AWG, except the wires on the main motherboard cable, which are thicker (16 AWG).
The modular system has 11 connectors and this power supply comes with 12 cables:
- Main motherboard cable, with a 20/24-pin connector.
- EPS12V cable.
- One cable with two ATX12V connectors that together form one EPS12V connector.
- Two cables with one six-pin auxiliary video card power connector each.
- Two cables with one six/eight-pin auxiliary video card power connector each.
- One cable with one six-pin and one six/eight pin auxiliary video card power connectors.
- Two cables with four SATA power connectors each.
- Two cables with three standard peripheral power plugs and one floppy disk drive power connector each.
All cables are relatively long, with 21 21/32” (55 cm) between the end that goes into the modular cabling system and the first connector on the cable. On the cables with more than one connector, there is 5 29/32” (15 cm) between the connectors.
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Figure 4: Cables.
Having a total of six power connectors for video cards, this unit supports three-way SLI. Two of these connectors, however, are available on the same cable. This usually leads to voltage drop at the connector when the unit is fully loaded and because of that we prefer to see all connectors using individual cables.
Let’s now take an in-depth look inside this power supply.
