Zippy Serene (GP2-5600V)

The Inside - Transformers


The transformers are located under the large secondary heatsink and therefore not very visible. The standby transformer sits directly beside the large one and supplies the 5V standby rail.

Secondary Side


The secondary side is quite packed like the rest of the inside. Capacitors seem to be sprouting like mushrooms from the PFC, since the cables don't leave much space and push them to the side.


The little extra PCB contains a chip from Weltrend, a Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer. We couldn't find any information about this chip since it's not listed on the company's website, but similar model names to this WT7507 indicate that it most likely has the safety feature monitoring like OVP and OCP on it. It should also contain the PWM controller which is needed to control the DC outputs of the PSU.


In the center of the picture above you will see an "all solid" capacitor (technically a "Conductive Polymer Aluminum Solid Capacitor", but we will simply abbreviate it here) which is different from a conventional electrolyte capacitor. We have seen these capacitors on graphics cards for a long time, and manufacturers of mainboards have switched to them as well for some products. Power supplies are beginning to use them too, since SeaSonic has also started already to use them for the S12-II series (which we will cover in our next PSU review). Benefits from the solid capacitors are a much longer life expectancy, reliability, and stability. All solid capacitors use a polymer instead of electrolyte and therefore they cannot leak. We have seen many leaking/broken capacitors in the past, particularly in power supplies, since they are one of the first components to fail in a hot environment like a power supply. This also means that these solid capacitors can withstand much higher temperatures than conventional electrolyte ones, and that they can generally last longer at lower temperatures.



Unfortunately, we found a problem with the Serene that is something we complained about in the G1 review. The outgoing cables aren't connected to the housing of the power supply, which means that if you handle it a little rough some of the cables could come loose at the PCB. We hope that this will be solved in later models, since it's not rocket science to attach an additional cable tie.