I recently bought a Seasonic 550W gold standard PSU after getting some good recommendations on another thread I posted here and the PSU has just arrived and while the PSU looks good I have not yet tried it as my sig build is not quite ready for it, but, the biggest disappointment are the modular cables, "THEY ARE THE NASTIEST, CHEAPEST LOOKING CRAPPIEST CABLES I HAVE EVER SEEN" OK, rant over, but they really are, they are not even braided badly there is no braiding at all and they are not even colour coded The cables are the horrible flat type and as soon as you start bending them around you can see that the wires are going to start separating and will quickly turn into a tangled mess, this is not what I expected for an £80 gold standard PSU, even my old Zalman modular PSU has all the cables braided and they are quite well done. When I opened the box I thought "Oh great, another really useful pouch" but actually it will be useful as I can hide the unused modular cables in it I will be braiding the cables but that's not the point, to me these are horrible, nasty cables of the lowest quality and the sort of thing you see hardwired on really cheap PSU's, NOT IMPRESSED, NOT AT ALL Not surprising that there are no pictures of the cables on the Overclockers advert. Think I will have to leave a suitable review on Overclockers site
It's the cheapest 550W Gold PSU on the market, and Seasonic aren't known for their value so they cut corners in their G series. You should be happy you have such a solid spec performer for £80. Be Quiet, Thermeltake, Silverstone, etc models are all at £100. The Seasonic X-560 is £130. You get what you pay for tbh
I hate flat cables, sata cables are awkward to route neatly so why psu companies choose to use flat cables is beyond me.
Aside from a (subjective) aesthetic point of view, I don't see what the problem is with these cables. I have similar cables on my modular Corsair PSU and haven't found anything to bother me.
No, you paid £80 for high efficiency, quality power and silent operation upto high loads. I can understand your disappointment, but you just need to get used to the market! £80 isn't a lot for a good 550W PSU any more.
And how are you supposed to do that when no pictures of the cables are shown in the advert, I spent £65 on a Zalman gold standard PSU 3-4 years ago and all the cables a were well braided with heatshrink there were no corners cut with that PSU, you got the quality alround. So seasonic sell a gold rated PSU but if you want decent cables you have to pay even more, that attitude stinks to me.
I bet the cable they use is the same as cable under braid. Braided cable is just bling, doesent make it quality. It may help if played about with alot, but why would you do that anyway. I bet that cable they used would be as high if not higher than any competitions. If its in spec then thats all you need. Also to be fair heatshrunk cable is only 1 step up from electrical tape. Over moulded cables are always best, which you dont see that often though.
Give this back and buy yourself a Zalman. The main thing is to be satisfied, if you don't value what this PSU offers then you're wasting your time. Edit: and I know I specifically said "cut corners" but I didn't mean it literally, Seasonic hasn't cut corners they've just used standard cables.
They're the same kind of cables that came with my Corsair HX520W (incidentally made by Seasonic). I find these cables to be excellent and I actually wish the Seasonic X-560 came with similar cables instead of the oldfashioned braided ones. I've also never had issues routing this specific type of cable.
Braided or not I do my best to hide power supply cables and the flat ones are more easy to hide TBH Only cables that look nice are individually braided cables the rest should be hidden IMHO honestly your PSU has way more pros than cons
^ This. Cabling is a pain in the arse. My Pro AX-750W (pretty much the highest-spec-line Corsair make) comes with exactly the same sort of cables. The lack of braid and sleeve makes these approximately a million times easier to route and I'm very happy with them. Then, er, mod them?
personally I think modding PSU cables is a bit of a nightmare I would never even try it. Voids warranty takes ages costs a packet I just bought braided extensions for my main cables 24-pin, 8pin and 2 PCIE cables
There are reviews for the G-550 (and others in the series), you could have read them to get more of an insight into the product. Don't know what a gold standard PSU is. If you're talking about 80 Plus Gold then AFAIK Zalman have only recently (in 2012) released their first 80 Plus Gold PSUs in the GoldRock ZM-XG series.