We're looking for new writers to join us!

SeaSonic Super Tornado Power Supply

SeaSonic Super Tornado Power Supply

Written by Charles Husemann on 8/5/2003 for PC  
More On: SeaSonic Super Tornado Power Supply
Power supplies, probably one of the most important parts of your computer. The problem is that people usually don’t pay that much attention to them. The allure of the nice cases, sexy video card, and fast hard drives tend to distract people from the thing that gives all of those other components life. Too little power and you can’t run all your stuff. If the power isn’t stable, then neither is your system.

SeaSonic isn’t exactly a household name in the US but they are big overseas and they are now starting to hit the our shores with their products. Today, we’ll be looking at their new 300 Watt Super TornadoPower Supply Unit (PSU). What’s nice about the Super Tornado is that they actually offer some new advances in the power supply world.

The first big change is that instead of using one or two 80 MM fans to pull heat out of the case, it uses one horizontally mounted 120MM fan. This has several nice effects. The first is that since you have one big fan turning at lower RPMS you have a lot less noise eminating from the back of your case (and less noise is always good). This also means the power supply is a lot more efficient, which is a “good thing” ™

The Super Tornado also comes with SeaSonic’s Smart & Silent Fan Control system, which increases and decreases the fan speed as the temperature inside the case changes. The warmer it gets the faster the fan moves and like wise the fan is slowed when the temperature cools.

The other striking difference between the Super Tornado and other PSU’s is that the entire back of the PSU (except for the adapter plug and on/off switch) is open and covered with a thin honeycombed grid. This helps to dramatically increase the outflow of air from the power supply and allows for more efficient dispersal of hot air. Another cool feature of the Super Tornado is that you can plug it into a socket anywhere in the world without having to worry about flipping any switches. That’s right…the Super Tornado auto-senses the voltage. I know it’s not groundbreaking but it’s still a pretty cool feature.

To test the Super Tornado, I decided to install it in my noisiest PC, my trusty AMD Server. I replaced the generic power supply with the Super Tornado, re-wired everything back to the board and turned on the system. Right away, I noticed that the only thing I could hear was the loud whine of the CPU Fan. I was pretty shocked to realize that A- power supplies really contributed that much noise and B- how loud a 7000 RPM 60MM fan could be on it’s own. I put my hand over the output to see how much air was being push out and was surprised to feel a nice light push out the back instead of the heavy push I had from the old PSU.

The final touch in the Super Tornado package is the inclusion of “Dr. Cable,” which is some flexible tubing that you can use to organize your cables with. They are spiral cut so you can easily work your cables in and out of the tubing. It’s a pretty unique system and a little cleaner to use than just tying the cables with ties.

All in all the Super Tornado is a solid power supply with a lot of innovative features. If you have a lot of components in your PC, you may want a larger capacity power supply but the 300W Super Tornado is a solid choice for an entry-level box or a server that you want to quiet down. The technology behind the Super Tornado is solid and SeaSonic has done a nice job packing the line with cool features (although part of me almost wants to see some LED’s in the power supply to spice up the appearance).
A solid power supply with some cool new technology. While this model isn’t necessarily what you want to build a power system around, it is still some cool stuff.

Rating: 8.6 Very Good

* The product in this article was sent to us by the developer/company.


About Author

Hi, my name is Charles Husemann and I've been gaming for longer than I care to admit. For me it's always been about competing and a burning off stress. It started off simply enough with Choplifter and Lode Runner on the Apple //e, then it was the curse of Tank and Yars Revenge on the 2600. The addiction subsided somewhat until I went to college where dramatic decreases in my GPA could be traced to the release of X:Com and Doom. I was a Microsoft Xbox MVP from 2009 to 2014.  I currently own stock in Microsoft, AMD, and nVidia.
 

View Profile