DriverHeaven.net: NorthQ Giant Connector 850w

Packaging and bundle

The box of the Giant Connector is well designed. It pictures the unit itself and its numerous features and specifications clearly. It appears tough enough to withstand some abuse during shipping and has a carrying handle at the top. The interior however is unimpressive with no bundled goodies and while we don’t necessarily consider this a huge issue we would like to see something other than just bubble wrap. The unit is also not particularly well protected against shipping knocks.

The Unit

The Giant Connector 850W is a simply designed unit, painted with a matte non-reflective black paint. The finish of the paint is very good though and hard to scratch, making the unit look quite sleek. Out of the box, it comes with all of its cabling pre-attached but of course you can remove those which you aren’t going to use. All of the unit’s cables can be removed, even the 24-pin ATX cable which seems a rather bizarre decision as everyone will be using it. The following cables come attached to the unit:

1 x 24/20pin ATX cable
1 x 6pin AUX power cable (most for servers)
1 x 4pin motherboard extension cable
1 x 8pin motherboard extension cable
2 x 6pin PCi-express cable (2 on each rail)
2 x 6pin/8pin PCi-express cable (2 on each rail) - Extra cable
8 x S-ATA plug on 2 cables (4 on each cable)
6 x Molex plug on 2 cables (3 on each cable)
2 x Floppy plug on 2 cable (1 on molex rail)
Total of 10 cables from Power Supply

The Giant Connector is cooled by a single 135mm red LED fan on the bottom of the unit and as it is thermally controlled in theory it should stay remain quiet. The rear of the unit is perforated, allowing the air to escape to the exterior of your case. There is a simple on/off rocker switch at the rear and a status LED right next to it. The LED is red when the PSU is plugged to the AC outlet but turned off and turns green when it’s turned on. A sticker with the unit’s specifications is placed on the left side.

The interior of the Giant Connector seems extremely neat and the heatsinks are sizable however we feel they should be larger. The cables at the right of the unit are well placed and do not create a mess and most of the capacitors seem to be of above average quality, but none of them are made by a class leading manufacturer which will concern many high end enthusiasts. The interior of the Giant Connector is almost identical to the one of the Giant Reactor 1kW unit which we reviewed on Driver Heaven a while ago.