FSP Zen Fanless 400 Watt Power Supply

Fortron Source (FSP) is a well known PSU manufacturer, often manufacturing power supplies for OCZ and other companies.  They have entered the retail market with their own brand name and they are beginning to offer a wide range of power supplies.  Today, we are going to take a look at the FSP Zen 400, which is a 400 watt power supply.  What makes this power supply special, is the fact that it has no fan to cool it down.  This means that this power supply is silent under all circumstances. This power supply features 80 Plus Bronze certification with a typical efficiency of 85.96%, which is great. 

Upon opening the box, you will find the manual, screws, power cable, and a FSP case badge.

Here are some of the main features and specifications from FSP's Website:

The Power Supply:

The power supply features a metallic blue colored housing and fan grill, which looks great.

Numerous ventilation holes can be found on either side of the power supply.

Looking at the top of the power supply, there is a FSP label with their logo on it, the model number and a condensed specification list.  Note that there are two +12v rails, with the +12v1 rail supplying up to 14 Amps and +12v2 supplying up to 13 Amps.  The 3.3v supplies up to 20 Amps and the +5v supplies up to 14 Amps. The efficiency is also 80 percent or greater at 20%, 50% and 100% loads.

There is an large grill on the back which allows the power supply to passively exhaust hot air, an on/off switch and AC Power Input.  This power supply does feature Active PFC, so there is no need for a  switch to select the input voltage.  Note the large heat sink slab on top.

This power supply features the following cables:

All cables feature a mesh sleeving

-A 24-pin ATX power connector with removable 4 pin for backwards 20-pin compatibility.

-A 4-pin +12 CPU power connector

-1x  6 Pin PCI-Express Power Connector.

-6x Molex Power Connectors, with a grip for easy removal from devices

-4x Serial ATA Power Connectors

-2x Floppy Power Connectors

Cooling:

There is a no fan on the bottom of this power supply.  Instead, there is a large heat sink that cools down the entire power supply.  This can be done without overheating thanks to its high efficiency.  This unit is silent.

Inside the Power Supply:

* Taking this power supply apart will void the warranty.

Inside the power supply, the internals are mostly covered by the massive heat sinks.  Note the thermal paste used to create a bond between the internal heat sinks and the large external heat sink.  The main transformer is on the bottom, while the smaller transformer can be seen near the top of the image.  The primary capacitor is Nippon Chemicon branded.

The Primary capacitor is Nippon Chemicon

Testing:

For this power supply, the test system consists of the following:

-Antec Performance One Case

-AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ @ 2.8 GHz with AMD Retail Heat Sink

-Biostar nForce 4 Motherboard

-2GB of Mushkin DDRII-1066 Memory

-320GB x 2 Western Digital 7200 RPM / 16MB Cache Hard Drives

-nVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS (G92) Video Card @ 715MHz Core / 1000 MHz Memory

-Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital Sound Card

-Sony 16x DVD-RAM / 18x Samsung DVD-RAM Drives

-4x 120MM fans, 1x 200mm fan

-2x CCFL Lights

(Multimeter Results)

*For additional / larger pictures of the FSP Zen 400, Click Here

*Voltages are at 'Max Load', running Orthos, Sisoft Sandra Hard Drive benchmark and 3DMark06 CPU Test 1 and 2 / Deep Freeze HDR test, and read with a Multi-Meter.

Capacitor Brands:

Great/Good

Primary: Nippon-Chemicon

Secondary: CapXon

Voltage Results:

+The results were good for this power supply and the voltages are within range.  The voltages budged when transitioning from an idle state to a load state.  All the tested rails were a little bit under powered when the system was under load.

Stability Results:

+Everything ran fine during testing, the system was stable and performed the tests as expected. 

Fan Speed Impressions:

+There is no fan in this unit.  It is silent.  Great!  The giant heat sink on top of the unit felt warm.

Installation:

+Installation of this power supply went well.  There were no issues fitting inside the test system's case.

Conclusion:

This power supply would be ideal for anyone looking to build a quiet system, such as an HTPC or a home office computer.  The FSP Zen is silent under both idle and load conditions, with the heat sink getting warm to the touch.  However, this power supply is not for multi-core and multi-gpu gaming systems, because it lacks the wattage, the 8-pin EPS power connector, and only features a single 6 pin PCI-e power connector.   At around $150, this power supply is expensive for what it is offering.  Some power supplies on the market with fans will stay fairly quiet at all loads and are cheaper, making the FSP Zen 400 less attractive.   

Pros +

-Good power output

-Great efficiency

-Silent

Cons -

-Not enough power connectors

-Expensive

-Only a two-year warranty

Techaddicts.net would like to give this power supply a Great rating!

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