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I was quite shocked to see this fan inside the flagship MSI MEG Ai1600T power supply. i have seen this fan in other power supplies I have reviewed before such as the Enermax PlatiGemini 1200W I tested back in April 2024 and other much cheaper units.
The fan in question is a 135mm ZETA ZIC fan. This is a double ball bearing design rated at 12V, 0.45A – model number ZFB132512H. Yes, this is a Double Ball Bearing unit, not a Fluid Dynamic bearing fan.
I am still waiting for feedback from MSI on their use of a Double Ball Bearing fan in this product, as based on the literature they sent me earlier, all the other units in this specific range are using Fluid Dynamic bearing fans. it seems like a very weird choice to me long term and I know DBB fans can get louder as the internal lubrication dries up over several years.
The more observant of you will have noticed there is a small piece of clear plastic covering a quarter of the fan (see above) which helps direct airflow across specific components underneath when properly installed above the PCB.
We can see that MSI are using CWT (Channel Well Technology) as their OEM partner of choice for this power supply. This is the CTF platform. Inside is a large PCB and it is pretty heavily populated across the board. They are using two parallel transformers instead of one, to save on circular space requirements.
The unit is not packed with heatsinks either, just a few strategically placed across the board. This is a fully digital design from CWT and adopts an MCU to control PFC and LLC. This architectural design helps to enhance accuracy and manages dynamic adjustments better as well to give more stable power delivery.
The 12V rail is generated via 12x FET's and are cooled by some heatsinks you see in the gallery above. The primary rail feeds a pair of DC-DC converters to generate the minor rails. A single NTC thermistor is adopted to deal with high inrush currents.
Build quality is stellar throughout and the soldering on the PCB (in images above) is also of the highest standards. CWT have clearly been given a large budget from MSI to design this power supply so you can see high grade Japanese polymer and electrolytic capacitors all over the design.
The two primary caps are 105c Japanese branded from one of my favourite brands Rubycon – both are rated @ 420v 790uF for a total of 1580uF output. While these are serious capacitors, the output is a substantially lower than the Seasonic based TX1600 edition which was populated with three capacitors from Nippon Chemi Con in the primary stage – for a whopping 2460uF output (3x 820uF) (See HERE).
