A few years back, a product like this was a pipe dream.
This much power with a gold efficiency from a reputable PSU maker, was unthinkable.
Thus SilverStone has no competition in the SFF market with this wonderful little piece of kit, the SX-600G, a fully modular, single rail 50 A, Gold Plus, 600 W SFX power supply.
First, about SilverStone
SilverStone Technology Co., Ltd is a company based in Taiwan, founded in 2003 that makes computer cases, power supplies, and other peripheral for personal computers.
Their goal was to provide products that create inspirations and customers a wide selection of choices.
With distribution centers in different areas of the globe, SilverStone products can be seen all over the world, not just for computer users but also for home entertainment use. Thus providing leisure with integration of advanced technologies that is functional and making them enjoyable to use.
They take pride in providing the highest level of standards in designing and manufacturing computer enclosures, power supplies, and accessories and their teams of devoted engineers are constantly searching for the best technologies that suit end-users with different needs and will make their products as technologically sound as they are beautiful.
Price when previewed – $ 129.99 – via Amazon.com
Silverstone Tek 600W Fully Modular Active Power Supply SX600-G
Specifications and presentation
• Power density of 756 W per liter
• Intelligent semi-fanless operation
• Support standard SFX form factor and ATX via included bracket
• High efficiency with 80 PLUS Gold certification
• 100% modular cables
• All cables made with flexible flat arrays
• 600W continuous power output at 40℃ operating temperature rated for 24/7 operation
• Class-leading single +12V rail with 50A
• Strict ±3% voltage regulation and low ripple & noise
• Support dual PCI-E 8/6pin connectors
Packaging
Self-explanatory box, where we have all the highlights of this unit.
Inside, we wished that we would have seen some dividers or some foam to protect the contents from moving but nonetheless everything was ok.
You get the usual like documentation, power cord, screws, cables, SilverStone also provides an adapter plate to install it in an ATX location.
Very nice.
Visual inspection
It’s sturdy and with a very good finish giving a high quality feel to it.
This is the 80 mm fan, model number AD0812UB-D91 made by ADDA with 0.36A.
The engraved logo.
There is no power button though, just the plug for the extension cord.
Here are the power plugs.
So few, right?
But it’s exactly what you need.
The main specs sticker.
And the cables themselves which are shorter of course than a regular ATX PSU from obvious reasons given the purpose of this unit. The cables also flexible for tight bends and WM routes.
Let’s do some size references.
And compared to a standard ATX power supply, the SeaSonic SII12 500W – 140 mm long.
Yes, it’s very small.
Installation
Hardware used.
Processor: Intel i7 2700k @ stock settings
CPU cooler: Thermalright AXP-100R
CPU Fan: Noiseblocker 120 MM NB-eLOOP B12-P PWM
Case Fans:
1x Noiseblocker 120 MM NB-eLOOP B12-P PWM (intake, towards the SFX PSU)
1x Noiseblocker 120 MM Multiframe M12-P PWM (intake, towards the CPU)
1x Noiseblocker 92 mm Black Silent Pro PE-P PWM (exhaust)
Fan controller: Swiftech 8-Way PWM Cable Splitter – SATA Power
Motherboard: MSI B75IA-E33 mITX
RAM: 2 x 4 GB Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracers 1600 Mhz CL8
2.5″ HDD: HSGT 1 TB 7200 Rpm 32 MB
Video card: MSI GTX 760 OC 4 GB Twin Frozr – 170 W TDP
ATX PSU: Seasonic S12II 500W – non modular 140 mm long
The great design of a case such of the NCase M1, the SX-600G feels right at home and the cables are exactly the length required.
And as you can see how enormous the difference a PSU like this does for SFF builds.
There’s even the option with SilverStone short kit which has even more flexibility and plugs.
http://silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=438&area=en
We mounted the PSU with the fan inwards the case and attached a Noiseblocker eLOOP B12-P fan on the side of the case to blow towards it.
Sound testing
Sound meter used – Pyle PSPL01 – positioned 1 meter from the case, (we will include +/- 2-3 % margin for error) with ambient noise level of 25-30 dB/A.
The SX-600G’s predecessor from, the 450W ST45SF-G had 2 or 3 revision to try to solve the high noise problem but they didn’t quite succeed.
That was the biggest complains about that unit.
Something this small, of course, there will certainly be a compromise.
A 80 mm fan can’t compete with a 120 mm fan and has to compensate the performance by increase the rpm and thus the sound quality drops.
With the SX-600G they also offers semi-fan less operation which they claim that the fan-less mode operation deactivates when PSU’s internal temperature reaches 45°C.
And an improved fan with an excellent rpm/power relation delivery.
Observations:
After we put the plug in (the PC was shut down) we noticed a faint high pitch sound like coil noise.
Started the PC and after 5 minutes the coil noise started to disappear.
In idle, it’s virtually inaudible from 30 cm way, we keep our case on the table.
In the equivalent of the PSU’s 50-60 % load, a total wattage consumption from a gaming session in Shadow of Mordor, where we have the GPU at 99 % load, again it’s also silent, so we imagine you may hear the PSU’s fan only after +80-90% load.
The recorded total PC sound was almost 40 dB/a and the SX-600G wasn’t the loudest component.
So, we think they solve it in these circumstances.
To mention that after the PSU fan starts to spin, it will not stop, not even when we cooled the PSU with our separate case fan.
After a few days we started to notice a small fan chatter from it, sometimes you can hear it if you get really close but sometimes it disappears completely.
Will investigate further, but again, these are subjective, if you really try to look for them.
Conclusion
Being the only option for a high output SFX power supply, it does the job quite well.
In our tests they fixed the sound problem at least up until 400-500 W.
At 100 % load ~ 600W it may start to be loud.
But even with a single GPU card with overclock, then a quad core CPU with high overclock plus all the extras you can fit in a small case, we don’t think there will be a problem of power delivery.
SilverStone states that it will even handle the dual GPU monster the Titan-Z.
And with the new video cards from NVidia the 9xx series, which have such good efficiency, you can even use this power supply in a SLI operation with 2 of those, and there will be no problems.
Beside the small coil noise when the PC is closed and in the first 5-10 minutes of cold operation and probably small fan chatter (but we can’t say for certain that it’s coming from the PSU) we couldn’t find any more issues.
The price is a little high from a PSU perspective of this wattage like an ATX one, but again this a niche product and simply put it’s the only option you have.
But we think it is worth it because it changes a lot in the space optimization of a SFF build.
The supplied cables are excellent, performance is good, sound is subjective but it didn’t bother us at all in our tests.
So,
Globetrotters 4 out 5
