Zalman ZM600-HP 600 W Power Supply Review

A Look Inside The ZM600-HP

We decided to di
sassemble this power supply to see what it looks like inside, how it is designed, and what components are used. Please read our Anatomy of Switching Power Supplies tutorial to understand how a power supply works inside and to compare this power supply to others.

In this page, we will have an overall look, while in the next page we will discuss in details the quality and rating of the components used.

We can point out several differences between this power supply and a low-end (a.k.a. “generic”) one: the construction quality of the printed circuit board (PCB); the use of more components on the transient filtering stage; the active PFC circuitry; the power rating of all components; the design; etcetera.

On Figures 8 and 9 you can compare Zalman ZM600-HP to OCZ GameXstream 700 W. You can see only four differences between the two: the color of the PCB, the use of a different heatsink design, the use of a voltage regulator integrated circuit on OCZ GameXstream 700 W for creating a minimum load on the +5 V rail and the modular cabling system (available only on Zalman ZM600-HP). On the next pages we will be checking whether the components used on both power supplies are the same or not.

Figure 8: OCZ GameXstream 700 W.

Figure 9: Zalman ZM600-HP.

The design of the heatsink used on the secondary is really interesting, using a copper heat-pipe. In Figure 10, you can see it better.

Figure 10: Inside Zalman ZM600-HP.

Figure 11: Inside Zalman ZM600-HP.