Internal Inspection:
As with all power supply reviews at Bigbruin.com, the label warning of a voided warranty was disregarded and the housing was cracked open. The design on this PSU made it rather difficult to get in, and in addition to removing four screws I wound up doing a bit of prying and pulling to get the cover off. Once inside, I found that the tightly packed components, random sheets of insulative plastic, and messy squirts of white goo made it look a bit sloppy and cluttered.
There are two reasonably sized T-shaped heatsinks in the middle, a smaller heatsink towards the exhaust, and all the typical components you would expect to find. And just in case you hoped to get lucky, there are no potentiometers for voltage rail adjustments.
Installation and Operation:
The Rosewill RD600N-2DC-SL-SLV Stallion Series 600W Power Supply was installed in a system with the following base components for this review:
» Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Dual Core processor
» ASUS P5KC P35 ATX motherboard
» Aeneon XTUNE 2GB PC3-10600 DDR3 dual channel memory
» Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB hard drive
» 256 MB HIS IceQ X1300XT Turbo PCIe graphics
» Cooler Master iTower 930 ATX
» Windows Vista Home Premium
» Lite-On IDE DVDRW
» Fans: 1x 120mm, 1x 92mm
A setup like this might be the type that this PSU was designed for; modern and fairly high end, but not over the top with things like numerous drives and multiple high end PCIe graphics cards. Baseline readings will be tested in this configuration, and then it will be loaded up for even more stress.
As with most power supplies, the installation portion is no big deal. It is a standard size, and even though the cables are not modular they are easy to work with. As mentioned, the two cooling fans both feature blue LED lighting and the image below shows what it looks like in action. The blue glow is noticeable, but not as overpowering as some power supplies I have seen. I'd honestly prefer something like this, as it won't light up a darkened room.
Seeing two 80mm fans had me a bit concerned that the unit was going to be noisy. It has been a while since I have used a power supply with this configuration, and after having many single fan units, some with larger fans that can spin slower and quieter, I didn't think this one would be able to compete. Much to my surprise, the noise level was quite low. It wasn't the quietest PSU I have ever used, but the sound was easily masked inside a closed case.
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