A Closer Look:

Side by Side

3/4 shot

120MM fan

Spec sticker

     With all the contents removed from the box, let's go over the layout of the power supply. The chassis of the power supply is done in a brushed nickel finish, which I like a lot. The bottom houses an 120mm fan, and the fan is covered with a gold fan grill with be quiet! in the center. On the back side, the entire area is one vent, and the vent holes are honeycombed to one side. The PSU switch and power input are also located here.

Modular side

Close up

Fan headers

cable trunk

    Now to the business side of the Dark Power Pro: the modular side. Count 'em: 13 separate plugs on the back of PSU... and it's not even 100% modular. The motherboard and ATX 12v cables are hardwired. So, what's the deal with all those plugs? Let's break them down and find out. The two red plugs are PCI-E1 and 2, the blue are PCI-E3 and 4. That's a total of four separate PCI-E power plugs. The next set of four plugs are labeled HDD, next is an EPS 12v 8pin plug, and a 6pin plug labeled MB. Last, but not least, is a set of 3 plugs for fans that are temperature controlled, so if the temps rise in the system, the fans start to spin faster.

Thermo Control:

    Fan follow-up control ECASO (Enhanced Cooling After System Off)protects sensitive hardware, such as graphic cards or hard drives, effectively from overheating. The power supply fan and the fans connected to the power supply are supplied with power for 3 minutes after shutting down. The thermal electronics regulates the rotational speed of both the power supply fan and the 3 housing fans connected directly to the power supply. The speed indicator signal for the power supply fan can be read out over the motherboard... IF your motherboard is equipped with the sensor header.

Inside:

VOIDED	Sanyo fan	Inside view	Dual fan header
Large Cap	Black heatsinks	Up close of transistors	Modular board
Poor solder joints	Sealed nuts	Fan controller	More up close

    Ahhh... yes: the "Warranty Void if Removed" sticker. Usually, I can just peel it back, but this sticker is so fragile it just breaks apart. Oh, well. The readers want to see the guts of the power supply, so I'm not going to let a simple little thing like that stop me from showing what the readers want. After removing the four screws and lifting off the cover, we can see how the components are laid out. The heatsinks found in the Dark Power Pro units are black in color, not the standard silver. The 120mm fan made by Sanyo plugs into a fan header on the circuit board, and a second header is also here for the possibility of dual fan setup. Attached to the large heatsink is a circuit board. This is the thermal electronic circuit used for the three fan headers on the back of the power supply.

Cables:

    Plenty of cables are supplied with the modular line of Dark Power Pro PSU's, along with a 24 to 20pin adapter that I haven't seen before and some rubber caps to cover up any unused plugs. So let's start off with this unique adapter. The solution of old was to snap off the 4 extra pins not needed for a 20pin motherboard power connection. Well, on the Dark Power Pro the extra 4pins don't snap off; instead, a 24 to 20 pin adapter snaps on. Very Cool, and I like it. If you are worried about extra connections, DON'T! All the plugs are gold coated, so power loss or electrical interference won't be issues at all.

    OK back to the cables - and let's break them down cable by cable:

• 4x PCI-E

• 1x 12v 8pin cable

• 2x  with 1 Molex on each

• 1x VGA/HDD

• 2x with 4 Molex plugs on each cable

• 1x with 3 Molex plugs and 1 FDD plug

• 3x with 4 SATA plugs on each cable

• 3x Fan cable with 1 Molex and 1 3pin fan header on each cable.

    There's a lot of cables here. We are talking about 12 SATA and 13 Molex plugs, not to mention 4 separate PCI-E cable for you QUAD SLI lovers out there. Plus, every square inch is covered in the black plastic mesh and are sufficiently long to reach every inch square inch of a case. Very impressive on just the cables alone.