Aw, yeah, way better.
Modular power supplies are certainly nothing new,
but Seasonic has put a bit of a different spin on it.
This is the Seasonic CONNECT "one clean solution,"
and unlike other modular power supplies,
which have the PSU itself
and then a bunch of connectors on it,
this one...
(groaning)
...comes out of the foam like that.
What?
This video checking out the CONNECT
is brought to you guys by Seasonic.
♪
On the surface, everything looks normal.
This is a 750-watt power supply.
It's 80 Plus Gold certified just like Seasonic's PRIME GX.
It's got their hybrid mode for the fans,
so the fan will actually stop turning under low load,
and it's got a 140-millimeter fin,
but that's actually where things get interesting.
That 140-millimeter fan is taking up the entire surface.
You see, look how short this thing is.
Also how short this cable is.
So just like older non-modular power supplies,
the cable is hardwired into the unit,
but that's all you've got.
Not even a full 24-pin ATX power connector
and then whatever this is.
You know this looks just like
the old 20-pin motherboard power connector,
but if you plugged this into one of those boards,
it would definitely kill it.
Let's have a look at what else is in the box.
So there's those funky magnets I found before.
Ah!
Wow, those are super strong magnets.
These have got to be rare-earth magnets.
♪
Ooh, yeah, and that's how they crack.
And I did say this was a modular power supply,
so here's our bag of modular cables.
Nothing unusual about a bunch of modular cables
in a modular power supply,
except look at this!
So here's our 24-pin power connector,
but it's a little baby one,
and it doesn't go in anywhere here.
Ah-ha!
That is where this comes in.
So what Seasonic has done here
is they have included most of the usual things
you would find in a power supply,
except instead of doing the DC-to-DC conversion
that is already industry standard
where your power supply will take the AC mains power
and just convert it to 12-volt DC power
and then derive any other voltages--
5-volt, 3.3-volt-- from that.
Now, older power supplies
used to actually take mains power
and convert it separately for each voltage,
but this way ended up being more efficient
and with cleaner output.
So what they're doing then
is they're doing basically that,
but they're doing the 12-volt
to other voltages conversion elsewhere.
Basically here's how it goes down:
Your power supply goes in.
This weirdo 20-pin goes into the bottom
of the CONNECT here,
and then there's also this little doodad,
and that goes in a little something like that.
All down this side, we've got our motherboard power,
couple PCI Express for graphics,
and a handful of IDE or SATA plugs,
and then over here we've got these two plugs,
which would go right up to your CPU power
and then one more peripheral one.
So basically, the idea is you're taking that conversion,
and then you're running much smaller wires
for a much cleaner look at the back of your case.
That all sounds fine and good in theory,
but is this even gonna fit in anything?
We can do this, right, Andy?
Just cure my OCD, please!
Yeah, I know, right?
So Seasonic has validated cases,
but we're all about making things interesting,
so instead, we grabbed Taran's old editing workstation
that he's been having some trouble with
and we're gonna try and cure
the cable clutter on the back of a tempered glass case.
This system was originally built
about three years ago before the concept
of RGB light daisy chaining had really been introduced,
and back when power supplies still all had their cables
plugged in at the bottom like, you know, like cavemen.
So let's see what we can do.
There honestly might not be much we can do
about the RGB wiring, but I'm gonna be curious
to see how much cleaner, if at all,
this looks without so much power supply wiring.
So I'm gonna unplug everything from this side,
feed it back through.
♪
A 24-pin for the motherboard.
Oh, you've gotta be kidding me.
I did not think that one through.
The 4-pin and the 8-pin for the motherboard
are covered by this AIO water cooler.
Guess we're taking the whole thing apart.
And of course, these builds were the one time
that we put all eight screws in a radiator.
Out with the old power supply...
and maybe a little bit of dusting is in order.
♪
We didn't specifically pick this case
because it's listed as compatible.
In fact, as far as I know, it's not,
but we did pick something
that we thought would have a chance
of being compatible.
Because the cable comes out on this side,
you can see, obviously,
if we had to mount our power supply
with the fan side up, it wouldn't be able to reach
and you could run into similar issues
if you had a case with a top mounted power supply,
for example.
I really got to wonder what this design costs them
in added materials.
Does it gain them back in shorter runs
at lower voltages?
Maybe the whole point really just is
it's tidier looking.
I'll be the judge of that.
That is pretty clean!
There's like nothing there.
Of course, we do still need to put this in here.
So compatibility-wise,
it's about two centimeters thick,
so as long as you have that much room
on the back of your motherboard tray
and enough uninterrupted space to mount it,
you should be good to go.
Now this one has a bit of a fold-out lip
around the back of the CPU cutout,
but I still think we should be able to make it work.
That's where our magnets come in.
A little bit of feedback for the boys back at Seasonic,
if these pads could be pre-applied.
Doesn't take that long, but it's gonna be
a little bit faster to install.
That is really tight,
but we did manage to get it in there,
so I'm gonna pop this off.
Let's finish the install.
You know what I'm kind of tempted to do
is just nibble this a little bit.
Normally, I wouldn't recommend this
to install a power supply,
but, hey, we gotta have our fun.
(hammering)
♪
Aw, yeah, way better.
Starting with the 24-pin, everything plugs in
the way you would normally expect
on a modular power supply.
This bad boy is gonna go here.
Okay, this one right here.
And then this goes straight over to the other side.
Now, our CPU connectors go right here,
and then over to the other side.
Actually working exactly as intended so far.
That's good.
Plenty of time for this to go south later, though.
What else we got?
So our RGB controller needs a SATA power,
and then there's another LED thing down in the bottom
that needs SATA power.
And, wow, that's-- that's about it, ain't it?
This has actually been pretty painless.
I'm already putting the AIO back in.
Now we just need to deal with all these fan cables.
Now that's not actually bad
if we can get everything contained like that.
I do like the magnetic mounting,
'cause it means if you need to route something under it,
you just pick it up and then put it back down.
That's pretty cool.
There's one of our RGB connectors.
Here's another RGB connector.
So many RGB connectors, that's fine, I think.
So much for two and a half inch drives.
See ya, it was nice knowing ya.
I'm just trying to get my cable tie back
through the loop.
Come on.
I see it, just need the right tool for the job.
That's me.
Now for the big test: Does it close
without mashing it shut?
♪
Awesome.
Got it!
Obviously, I knew what we were getting into
going into the video, but I'm still surprised
at how much cleaner that looks.
We did this whole thing start to finish
in just about an hour, didn't we, Andy?
Yeah!
That's not bad for a component swap
like that in cable management.
Even though we don't have the cover anymore,
I actually think it looks cleaner without it.
See, this cover used to be there,
so it's actually kind of similar-looking.
Theoretically, that's plugged in.
Ah, damnit.
♪
Oh, hey, it's got lighting, too!
Look at that. Not bad!
Did somebody pre-configure this system for me
so the lighting would match?
Apparently, this isn't RGB,
so that is something to watch out for.
However, if you happen to be
super into the blue color scheme,
that's gonna look pretty darn sharp, isn't it?
Now, of course, the one remaining question is:
But at what cost?
Well, believe it or not,
compared to other 750-watt modular power supplies,
it's not outlandishly priced,
so it kind of comes down to whether you want
your modular interface on the back of your power supply
the conventional way or whether you want it
running up the back of your motherboard
so that you can run off the cables
wherever the heck you want.
So thanks again to Seasonic for sponsoring today's video.
If you guys are looking for another video to watch,
they also sponsored the Compensator PC 2020!
It was supposed to be 2019,
but it took us until 2020 to build it.
Anyway, we're gonna add that link below.