Seasonic S12 500W Power Supply

A First Look at the Power Supply:

The Seasonic S12 500W power supply comes in an attractive retail style box covered with all sorts of features & specifications. The wattage is clearly labeled on the front, as is the PSU series.

Seasonic uses what they call "Twisted & Tidy Wires", which supposedly make for a neater installation and reduced EMI. In all honestly, I'm not too much of a fan of the twisted wires, they actually seem to just cause more clutter and increase the chance of getting caught on something. My preference would be plain old straight wires with mesh sleeving. Still, you have to give Seasonic props for trying something different.

The main power cable is approximately 17" in length, the other cable range from about 13" up to 18" to the first connector (nearest the PSU). All pins are tin plated, not gold plated like we have seen on many other high end PSUs. This is still somewhat a topic of debate as to the advantage of gold over tin in this application, but my personal preference is to always go for the best, which would be gold.

Cable Details:

• 1 x 20+4pin main ATX power cable
• 1 x 4pin +12Vconnector
• 1 x 8pin +12V EPS connector
• 2 x 6pin PCI-Express connectors (single cable)
• 6 x 4pin connectors (2 cables)
• 4 x Serial ATA connectors (2 cables)
• 2 x floppy connectors (2 cables)
• 1 x 3pin fan monitoring connector