Page 4 -Minor Tests and Conclusion
Power supplies are interesting products -- because often, reviews of products in this category are conducted and tested in methods that make it difficult to distinguish one power supply from another. Many aspects have to be taken into consideration -- of which certain criteria consists of efficiency, noise, power ripples, and of course the ability to pull out the rated specifications. Because many cannot afford such equipment to obtain results regarding those aspects, articles covering power supplies often come out with less than adequate and acceptable information. As this is a product report -- not a review -- what we are doing is a close examination of the power supply, and the internal hardware and build. But what we can do for you is do some minor testing with the results we can present to you with, and let other review sites with professional equipment show you the actual test results. We are not going to try to BS you by installing the power supply into the latest gaming rig and try to take readings from that, as this is not even remotely the correct way to test power supply units. We understand that many websites do that as a means of load testing, but the results, even if you use an oscilloscope and multimeter at each output location, it is not sufficient, nor does it accurately reflect the performance of the power supply.
Using our power supply tester that exerts minimal load on the power supply, initial consumption was 7W as measured by our wall meter -- indicating the basic load-free power consumption of the power supply is excellent. Independent reviews from Internet with professional load testing equipment showed the SilverStone SFX SX500-G 500W was able to deliver good energy efficiency, voltage regulation, as well as the ripple performance for all rails. Keep in mind that this is an 80 Plus Gold certified power supply unit.
Voltages with minimal load are generally accurate, which is a basic requirement of power supplies out of the box. In this situation, all are well within 4%. The PG (Power Good) delay seems to be well within its rated range and general power supply standard at 320ms.
Active power correction is important to correct AC load line loss. In AC power, there are three components to it since there is a phase difference between current and voltage. This makes up the power triangle, which consists of the following: Average usable power (P, measured in watts), reactive power (Q, denoted as VA-R), and total power (S, written as VA). While these are all power measurements, they cannot be considered as one thing. What we want is the average usable power, with as little wasted reactive power as possible. The total power provided over the AC line is the magnitude of the two combined (sqrt(P^2+Q^2)). Power factor can now be easily calculated as P/S. The ideal value is 1.00, and this is where active PFC comes in. Under nominal loads, the power factor value of the SilverStone SFX SX500-G 500W was at 0.94, which is pretty good.
The cooling fan in the SilverStone SFX SX500-G 500W power supply unit will stay on as long as it starts to work. Using the APH Networks noise scale that defines 0 is silent and 10 is the loudest, I would like to rate this power supply unit as 3.0/10 acoustically under normal loads. Although I would prefer a 500W power supply unit to have a silent mode when the workload is not high, there is really nothing I can complain about since the overall noise level is rather low.
SilverStone provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
The SilverStone SFX SX500-G 500W is another well-designed and well-built power supply unit from the company. The internal design is appropriate for a smaller SFX unit, and all the components are of good quality. According to our affiliates, this product features excellent voltage regulation performance and energy efficiency. The only things I can suggest to improve this product is to have a silent mode, a higher temperature rated primary capacitor, and longer warranty than three years. The retail price of this review unit is $105 USD at press time. It is not a bargain for sure, but considering the amount of power it delivers in such a compact form factor and 80 Plus Gold certification, you know where your money went.
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Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Minor Tests and Conclusion
