Features:
From the outside, the Power Mod 700 is a fairly standard looking modular power supply. The uniform black paint scheme is carried on right down to the black fan grill. The right side has the specifications sticker found on all power supplies and the left side has a stamped FSP logo across it. The modular connectors found on the back are all colour coded to match with the modular cable ends for easy hookup. Still, for peace of mind, a labeled sticker found below them will also help guide you with hooking things up.

(Click below to enlarge)
 

The Power Mod 700 is built using a quad +12V rail design which handles 520W of the power supply's total power. Although the quad 12V rail design seems good on paper and in marketing practices, it is quickly becoming a design fad of the past. Truth is, more power is lost using quad rails because each rail is loading up faster and in some cases a single rail can not handle the power being drawn by new hardware (primarily video cards). By using a single 12V rail, 100% of the power from the supply can be transferred to the hardware without nearly as much loss. Amperage must be divided out over these four rails as well. Typically, 20A is the maximum each rail can handle in a quad-rail design, but most designs will allow only 18A per rail... not enough for some of the newer video cards! A single rail design will allow around 65 amps or more on this single rail which is perfect for newer high end video cards which will draw over 20A on their own! So although this is a high wattage power supply, it does suffer in this area of the design which will completely put it out of the picture for anyone building a new high-end gaming system. For those who will never use high powered components like some of the new video cards, then this would still be a great contender for your system!

Cooling the Power Mod 700 is taken care of by a 120mm ADDA fan, a similar model we're seeing in a lot of the high end power supplies on the market these days. It's proven time and time again to be not only a quiet fan but also a well performing one. The fan is thermally controlled so I'm expecting fairly low noise levels when my system is running at idle. If this power supplies electronics do have an 80% or higher efficiency as advertised then I'd expect this fan to stay fairly quiet even when the power supply is under load as well.

 
(Click to enlarge)

Since I've touched on efficiency, let's talk a bit more about it. I was surprised to see that for a new model of high performance power supply that the box of the Power Mod did not bear the 80PLUS certification logo. For consumers, this logo means that a power supply has an 80% or higher efficiency at all times which translates into much less power loss than a "cheap" power supply would have. Since these power supplies are more efficient they do not generate as much heat and are also much quieter when being cooled. With such a strong move towards energy conservation and a "greener" world most manufacturers are striving to make even their cheapest models of power supplies certifiable as 80PLUS. So, as you can imagine, I was struck to see that the Power Mod 700 did not bear this certification. Now, their box does state that it has a "typical" efficiency of 80%+ but that is all they touch on in that regard. If this power supply does indeed stay true to operating at 80%+ then I would hope that FSP Group will get it certified in the future to help with marketing and sales.

The connectors on the Power Mod 700 are laid out as follows:
Hardwired:
1x 20/24 pin ATX connector
1x 4/8 pin ATX connector
1x 6 pin PCI-E power connector

Modular:
5x SATA connectors
5x Molex connectors
1x FDD connector
2x 6/8 pin PCI-E connectors

(Left: modular cables, right: hardwired cables. Click to enlarge)