Fractal Design ION+ 560P
Fractal Design is a newer, Swedish, entrant into the enthusiast DIY hardware landscape having been founded in its current form in 2007. Early on in their existence, Fractal Design began offering a range of DIY quiet cooling and HTPC based products that today include fans, power supplies, cases, etc. Given the nature of their offerings, Fractal Design has become a choice among quiet cooling and HTPC aficionado’s. Today, we are looking at our first power supply from Fractal Design. That power supply is the ION+ 560P (also seen as the ION+ 560 Platinum) which is made by Sirfa.
Sirfa Electronics Co., Ltd. is a name that is not that familiar to most users but Sirfa has been around since 1996 when Sirtec established Sirfa as a factory in the Sirtec group on mainland China. In June 2008, Sirtec sold off its interest in Sirfa making the company independent of the Sirtec brand but still in business with High Power. As such, while we have not seen any Sirfa produced power supplies under the Sirfa brand, some of the Sirtec units of the past were produced at the Sirfa facility. Additionally, we have seen Sirfa providing OEM services for Thermaltake, Enermax, PC Power & Cooling, Tuniq, Lepa, SilverStone, and others with mixed results.
IONizing?
The Fractal Design ION+ 560P is the first power supply we have seen from Fractal Design here at The FPS Review. However, most of our readers are probably already familiar with Fractal Design as they have become the most Swedish thing in our lives since ABBA, Volvo, and IKEA (thankfully we don’t have to assemble this shit ourselves). As such, today, it will be very interesting to see how this power supply does in our load testing. Perhaps even more interesting than usual as the ION+ 560P is not exactly and entry level power supply but still not a high end enthusiast unit. It is in a Swedish form of purgatory. Before we get to that though, let’s see what Fractal Design has to say about this unit:
The Ion+ Platinum is a high-performance fully modular PSU with whisper-quiet operation, enhanced cable flexibility and superior output quality
- UltraFlex DC wires for effortless cable-routing and connectors
- Custom-tailored 140 mm fan with exceptionally low minimum speed
- 80 PLUS® Platinum Efficiency for optimized electrical performance
Let’s move on now and see what we can expect when a user purchases the Fractal Design ION+ 560P power supply in retail in terms of documentation, accessories, cable count, rail layout, output characteristics, and general build quality.