ocaholic - PSUs > Silverstone SX600-G SFX Review

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Preview

Page 2 - Preview

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Delivery and Specifications

Delivery
Cable	Length
1 x ATX 20+4 pin	30.5 cm
1 x EPS/ATX 12V 4+4 pin	40.5 cm
2 x PCI-E 6+2 pin	40.5 cm
1 x 3 SATA	30, 50, 60, 70 cm
1 x 2 Molex	30, 50 cm
1 x Floppy	20 cm

The delivery of the SX600-G 600W is perfectly adequate. In total you can provide one graphics cards with power, which is perfectly reasonable for an SFX PSU. Although 600 Watts would be enough to even power and SLI or CrossFire setup you can keep in mind, that it's very unlikly that a case which requires an SFX PSU offers enough space for two graphics cards. In this case you could use this unit for some serious high-end builds using a single GPU.

With this power supply SilverStone is offering a single rail design regarding 12V. In total you get 50A, which can be turned into heat by a powerful graphics card for instance.

Specifications (according to SilverStone)
Voltage	Current	Power
+ 3.3 V	20 A	90 Watt	650 Watt (Total)
+ 5.0 V	15 A	90 Watt
+ 12 V	50 A	600 Watt
- 12 V	0.3 A	3.6 Watt
+ 5 Vsb	2.5 A	12.5 Watt

The SX600-G has been 80Plus Gold certified. This means, that the efficiency of this PSU should be above 87% at 20% load, above 90% at 50% load and above 87% at 100% load.

At this point the feature list:

80Plus Gold
OVP, OCP, SCP, OPP, OTP
Dimensions (W x H x D): 125 mm x 63.5 mm x 100 mm
80 millimeter fan
Warranty: 3 Years
Price: ~139 CHF / ~120 Euro

Page 3 - Delivery / Specs

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A Look Inside

The unit itself is well made, SilverStone used a matte black finish, which looks pretty. Apart from that there is an 80mm fan from ADDA, which is specified at 0.36A and 12V. Removing the top of this unit we see that Silverstone is using a platform from Enhance.

Input filtering right behind the AC receptable is being taken care of by one X and some Y capacitors and apart from that the fuse this unit is also located in this area. Transient filtering continues on the main PCB and following the traces we find the bridge rectifiers. The APFC has been attached to an aluminium profile, providing additional cooling. The main capacitor for the APFC is from Nippon Chemi Con and featurs 450V, 330uF at 105°C specs. In order to save space quite a few MOSFETs have been moved to the back of the unit, where they do not receive any additional cooling.

Having a closer look at the secondary side we find DC-DC conversion where 3.3V and 5V are being generated fom the 12V rail. This is actually another keypoint for a modern power supply. You can clearly see that there are lots of cables in this unit, which actually block the airflow in the power supply significantly. Apart from that there are caps from Su'scon, which is something we don't understand. This is a very small, high power unit and therefore all Japanes would have been the way regarding caps. We're not too confident that this unit will last too many years if under serious load over long term.

Something we really like is the soldering quality. We couldn't find any glitches.

Page 4 - A Look Inside

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Result Analysis and Discussion

Efficiency
Load	Pin(W)	Pout(W)	Efficiency
10 %	71.40	60.73	85.05 %
20 %	135.40	120.92	89.31 %
50 %	331.80	300.98	90.71 %
100 %	672.50	596.73	88.73 %

The 80Plus Gold certification requirements (87% - 90% - 87%) are surpassed especially at 20% Load. The full Load efficiency is a bit higher at 230V AC. This is the case with most of todays PSU's an it mainly originates from the reason of lower losses in the AC filtering stage and the PFC at 230V AC. The 230V AC 100% Load efficiency is 90.50%.

Output Stability
Load	Rail	Loading(A)	Output(V)
20 %	3.3V	2.2	3.3
	5V	1.6	5.0
	12V	8.5	12.1

50 %	3.3V	5.4	3.3
	5V	4.0	5.0
	12V	21.3	12.0

100 %	3.3V	10.8	3.3
	5V	8.1	5.0
	12V	42.5	11.9

The Voltage Regulation of this PSU is good. It makes use of a DC-DC topology. This means, that the SX600-G is mainly a 12V PSU and then generates its 5 and 3.3V from 12V. This is a modern approach, and since the Load is mainly on 12V it makes a lot of sense. For almost any PSU which makes use of this topology crossload tests do not present a problem.

Noise
Load
20 %	silent
50 %	audible
100 %	well audible

If we listen closer with the power supply, we can say that it's silent at 20 percent load. At 50% load the unit is well audible and the same goes for 100% load.

Page 5 - Result Analysis and Discussion

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Conclusion

With the SX600-G 600W, SilverStone has a compact SFX power supply in its portfolio with high output power. The manufacturer decided to equip this little unit with a high quality fan. At 20 percent load it's silent, while running the PSU at 50 percent as well as at 100 percent makes it subjectively speaking well audible. What we really dislike are the cheap Su'scon caps. A power supply with such power density should definitely be equipped with only japanese capacitors, especially if you keep in mind the all the wires in this unit make the airflow be far from optimal. High quality capacitors would significantly increase the lifespan of the entire unit, especially if it's going to be driven under high load. It's really a pity there are chinese caps on the secondary side.
If you're planning on building a very small rig, which requires a SFX power supply you can consider this unit. Nevertheless we do not recommend using this unit with high load for a long time, since we do not trust the Su'scon caps in this case.

The SilverStone SX600-G 600W receives sufficient 3.5 out of 5 stars.