SFX PSUs... any good?

Legend · 2 Dec 2016 at 14:18

I'm looking at a Lian Li case which takes an SFX PSU, but I'm struggling to find any really good reviews of them. I know there have been a few new models come to market lately, but they don't seem to get the praise that the top end ATX ones do, certainly not in respect to overall quality, silence and performance. Are there any that come highly recommended, or is it just one big compromise?? Would be for a fairly high end system, so needs to be a decent wattage.

pastymuncher · 2 Dec 2016 at 19:32

The new Corsairs are extremely good though they are not exactly cheap.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Corsair SF Series 600W 80 Plus Gold Modular SFX Power Supply (CP-9020105-UK)= £112.99
1 x Corsair SF Series 450W 80 Plus Gold Modular SFX Power Supply (CP-9020104-UK)= £86.99

Jonnyguru has reviewed them both, 450w here in which he gave it a 9.9/10 and the 600w here in which he gave it 9.7/10. We have some users with them in this thread and CAT_THE_FIFTH did a unboxing and install in there as well.

Legend · 3 Dec 2016 at 03:10

Thanks. They do look pretty good actually, certainly going by the reviews.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 8 Dec 2016 at 22:34

My Corsair SF 450W is running a Xeon E3 1230 V2/Core i7 3770 and a GTX1080 fine. Most of the time the PSU fan does not even spin up when gaming.

WYNIR0 · 8 Dec 2016 at 22:47

The Silverstone ones are good in my experience.

pastymuncher · 9 Dec 2016 at 10:21

The problem with most of the Silverstones is fan noise. We have had many reports on here about that and some reviews flag it up as well. The best of the Silverstones are the SFX-L series although they are considerably larger due to the bigger fan.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 9 Dec 2016 at 10:56

pastymuncher said:
The problem with most of the Silverstones is fan noise. We have had many reports on here about that and some reviews flag it up as well. The best of the Silverstones are the SFX-L series although they are considerably larger due to the bigger fan.

My Corsair SF 450W is silent - the SF 600W seems to have a much more aggressive fan profile from what I have read though.

Edit!!

Corsair looks like they have one of the best SFX PSUs on the market IMHO OFC.

McPhee · 10 Dec 2016 at 00:04

You've got to be building one hell of a rig to need a 600W SFF PSU :eek:

LePhuronn · 17 Dec 2016 at 00:37

Silverstone ST45SF-G V2 is all the SFX PSU you'll ever need in my experience. Gold rated, 450W and can deliver up to 520W before shutting down, fully modular, doesn't have the fan noise people complained about with the V1 and the non-modular Bronze unit. Been running a 2500 and GTX Titan off it no sweat for 3 years, and will be moving it into the Asteria II project for the 6700K and same Titan.

The 600W version isn't quiet because the same 80mm fan kicks in more, but it's not too bad.

If you have a little bit more space, Silverstone do some solid SFX-L PSUs now ranging from 550W Gold to 800W Titanium, and they use a 120mm fan because of the extra bit of length.

Psypher5 · 17 Dec 2016 at 00:40

My st45g has developed quite an annoying pulsing coil whine after a year.
Got an RMA set up with Silverstone so can't xomplain,it's a solid unit running a 970 and an oced 4770k. Fan is quiet too

I'll prolly get the Corsair to replace it though,and use the Silverstone in a second machine.