Cables And Connectors
The 24-pin ATX connector has an unpluggable extension, allowing it to be used without an adapter for older boards. Two SATA connectors on a single strand is not much, nor are they glow-in-the-dark. The eight 5.25" connectors and two floppy connectors are generous though, albeit they could have been divided amongst more than two strands. The obligatory P4 connector glows green too. No PCIe graphics card connector is provided, so if you buy that kind of graphics card you have to hassle with an adapter.
Glow-in-the-dark ATX connector with unpluggable extension
The connectors look nice under black light
Performance
The Aspire power supply had no difficulty delivering its 520 nominal watts of performance, although voltage went down to 3.11 V with maximum load on the 3.3 volt line - 3.14 V should be the minimum according to specification. All other values were within the specified ranges.
The nameplate is rich in information, but where does it state output? Aspire could have found a better place for it than the list of features.
With an efficiency of 74% at normal load and 70% at low load this power supply comes out just "okay." Under maximum load, efficiency falls to a mere 68%. Six W of power consumption at low and 25 W at maximum standby load is by not one of the better test results.
At $59, the device is quite inexpensive.
