Features:
Although not their main advertised point, Seasonic power supplies are well known and popular for being ultra quiet. Since the power supply isn't modular, the casing is the size of your average PSU and isn't elongated like some modular power supplies tend to be. The entire casing is matte black in colour so at least it isn't going to collect fingerprints like a lot of the gloss-finish power supplies we review here!

The 120mm fan used to cool the internal components is made by ADDA. Happy to see the signs of quality already, this fan is a double ball-bearing fan. A lot of cheaper supplies will use a sleeve bearing fan for cooling and unfortunately that style of fan does not have a long life span and can also be fairly noisy. The fan is mounted to the power supply with soft rubber cushions which absorb extra vibrations and help to silence it even further.

Sporting the 80Plus logo on the box we can see that the S12II meets the standards set for 80Plus power supplies. What's this you ask? Most consumer power supplies, especially really cheap ones, do not have a very high power efficiency. That means that the power taken into the power supply from your wall isn't "used efficiently" inside the power supply. Only a certain percentage of that is making it to your computer itself, the rest is being turned into heat from inefficient components. Not only does this leave you with higher electricity bills, but it also leads to your power supply generating more heat than necessary and being louder because the fan(s) will need to spin faster to sufficiently cool all the components. Power supplies with the 80Plus rating achieve this by turning over 80% of the power taken in into power output for your computer to use. Not only are these power supplies great for lower electricity usage (compared to standard PSU's), but they also operate much quieter than most power supplies because less of the power is being turned into heat. According to Seasonic, the S12II power supply is capable of up to 85% efficiency.

Seasonic has also included many other small features that add to the quality behind the workings of this power supply. Having Active PFC will help ensure that your computer gets reliable and cleaner power by reducing line loss and distortion on the power taken in. There is also over power, over voltage and short circuit protection measures built-in as well. When you're running an expensive system, having this extra piece of mind on your power supply can help eliminate a lot of worries.