Legit Power Supply Reviews

SkyHawk PowerONE 620w Review **UPDATE 3/26**

Manufacturer: Skyhawk Group
Product: PowerONE 570w modular power supply
Date: Sun, Mar 06, 2005 - 12:00 AM
Written By: Yves Toleno -
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Cabling and Interior

So let’s talk about cabling for a little while. One of the main features of the PowerONE is its modular cables. On the back of the power supply there are five black six pin connectors, these connectors are keyed so you can not plug them in wrong. They are also all the same this means that you can plug the PCI-Express Graphics cable into any of the black connectors and same goes for the SATA cable. Now up until this time I have always thought that modular power supplies are for case modders and not overclockers. I mean why waste the money on something that just makes your case look good right? Wrong, overclockers should look harder at modular power supplies because you only use the cables you need, this clears up unnecessary wires that can impede air flow. From the second picture you can get an idea of how long the cables are. I will say that again cost cutting came into play with the cable length. The ATX power cable seems a little short to me, while I had no problems with length in my case but people with large cases might want to check to make sure they will reach before they buy.


While we are on the subject of cables lets talk about connectors. SkyHawk has done a nice job with the connectors the selected for the PowerONE. All the peripheral connectors are the new easy type. They are such an improvement over the old white ones I can not even begin to express how happy I was using these. The easy connectors were, well, easy to push in and pull out (get your minds out of the gutter). Also worth noting is the 20+4 pin ATX connector. If you have an older motherboard but want the latest power supply for future compatibility, all you have to do is slip the extra 4 pins off and pull the wires to the side and presto you get a 20 pin connector.

In side you can see the PCB that the modular connectors are soldered to. The connectors are well attached and the soldering looks to be decent, so not much chance of you breaking them off unless you’re the Hulk. I am a little disappointed by the small size of the heat sinks. One of the features that SkyHawk promotes is the fan control, when the PowerONE is less than 40 degrees C the fans do not spin, this is nice as it makes the PowerONE silent, but I worry about the longevity of the electrical components. Larger heat sinks would cost more money but would also ensure that components never overheat when the fans are not spinning.


One of the other features that the PowerONE came with is a third 12v rail and Audio Standby. SkyHawk accomplishes this with a secondary board attached to the bottom plate next to the 92mm intake fan. The three wires pictured on the left are the power leads for the secondary PCB. Just for fun I stuck my multimeter into the connector to see what kind of voltage/signal was powering the secondary PCB, when I first looked and it was reporting something like 2300v I freaked out then I switched to VAC and it showed 12v AC. This voltage is then rectified to 12v DC and 5v DC for the standby peripheral connector.


I think the Audio Standby while an interesting marketing touch is worthless. I have a few reasons for feeling the PowerONE would be better off without the Audio Standby. First the provided cable has two audio plugs one for the CD-ROM drive and one for the motherboard. The cable then runs to a PCI slot cover with a 1/8 inch mini jack. The reason this is a problem is because the length of the cable going from the CD-ROM to the motherboard is far too short for most on board audio solutions and for all PCI audio solutions. My second issue comes with the control over the Standby device, unless you have an old style CD-ROM which has play, stop, track buttons then your out of luck, and as luck would have it my Sony DVD/RW drive only has an eject button. My third issue comes with the fact that you have to use a stereo set of speakers for the Audio Standby. I for one do not want to have to switch my 5.1 speakers from the plug they are in now to a single 2 channel every time I want to listen to music on my computer while it is off. If I want to listen to music that bad then I will turn the damn computer on. So if your looking to buy the SkyHawk PowerONE for this feature DON’T, get it for its dollar to watt ratio and its other features that work and are worth the money.

Next Page - Testing


Review Index
Page 1 - Specifications and Features
Page 2 - Packaging and Impressions
Page 3 - Cabling and Interior
Page 4 - Testing
Page 5 - Final Thoughts