The ST56ZF follows the same packaging design as all previous power supplies from Silverstone, and many of their other products. The packaging gives plenty of information regarding the power supplies specification as we can see above.

Most interesting of all features listed on the top of the box is that the Zeus ST56ZF actually has only a single +12v rail. This is indeed a surprise, considering that the Strider 560w featured 2x +12v rails.

No mention of efficiency nor noise (dBA) ratings has been made on the packaging, which may be slightly worrying for those of us who enjoy silence or want to keep our energy bills low - but we'll find out for sure later on in the review.

My initial impressions on the look of this unit were that it is a bit of an 'ugly duckling'. The power supply is sprayed in matt black paint which is all fine, but the back of the unit sports a 'punched' fan grill, rather than making use of a wire fan grill seen on almost all other power supplies. In my opinion this gives the power supply a "computing in the 80's" kind of look.

The ST56ZF has the ability to auto-detect input voltage and switch between 110v/240v accordingly. This means there is no requirement for a voltage selection switch.

Also present on the back of the unit is an LED which shows you the current status. When switching the Power Supply on the LED turns from Red to Green. Only when the LED is Green is DC power supplied to the rails.

The sides of the unit are pretty much standard, with one side being covered with the Silverstone specification sticker, which contains the usual warnings and info.


The front of the unit is comprised entirely of a mesh grill, which provides the 80mm fan installed in the back of the unit with a supply of air to pull over the massive heatsinks installed inside the unit.

Yet again, Silverstone have only decided to sleeve the ATX, EPS12v and PCI-E cables leaving the Molex and SATA cables as bare wires. This is a great shame, as Silverstone have done and excellent job on the sleeved cables, using both cable ties and heat shrink to hold the sleeving in place.

To say that this power supply is 'jam packed' would be a serious underestimate. Every square inch of the casing is occupied by components, all of which are tidily arranged, but didn't leave me with much room to have a poke around inside to see what I could find.

The oversized aluminium heatsinks attribute to a large portion of the weight, with the rest being mostly down to the huge capacitors hiding beneath them.

Some very impressive results from the Zeus 560w on all of its 3 rails. Neither rail went anywhere near close to falling outside of ATX specification (+/- 5%), and there was very little fluctuation observed on any of the rails during testing.

What I did find surprising was the similarity between the results of this unit, and the previously reviewed ST56F. I was expecting the Strider series PSU to not fair quite as well as the Zeus, but this is just testament to the high quality components that Silverstone use across their entire PSU range.


Efficiency Testing

Another new addition to the Overclock3D PSU testing procedures is testing the efficiency of the power supply. These results will be helpful for people looking to save money on their electricity bills (or the environment), and will also allow us to see how close manufacturers efficiency ratings are to the truth.

The tests are performed by measuring the wattage consumed by the power supply at the mains against the power (in watts) consumed by the OC3D power supply stress tester.

The results may not be as accurate as those produced by professional testing equipment, but it will certainly come in handy when comparing several power supplies against each other.