SilverStone SX600-G SFX Series Power Supply Review

Efficiency, PFC and Voltage Regulation

Voltage Regulation

To test voltage regulation we load the power supply to five different load scenarios that give an equal spread of load across every single rail. So that means 20% on all rails, 40% on all rails and so on. We then calculate the average deviance of each rail from its expected voltage.

Due to the limitations of our load tester, we had to split the 12v rail across multiple “simulated” rails. Voltage regulation was surprisingly good on this unit, not that I was expecting it to be bad, but it’s still much tighter regulation than I was expecting and voltages are relatively consistent overall. There’s a bit of a droop on the 5v at full load, but I can’t see this being any cause for concern at all.

Power Efficiency

Power efficiency is measured by calculating actual supplied wattage divided by the wattage drawn at the wall/plug, multiplied by 100 to give a percentage. We then compare that to the particular 80 Plus certification the company claims to see if it meets that. You can see the 80 Plus certifications below, we always test 230v power supplies.

This was quite a surprise, as the unit performs even so slightly under the 80 Plus Platinum specifications, that’s certainly no bad thing and good efficiency is always a welcome feature on and PSU.

Power Factor Correction

Power Factor Correction is the ratio of the real power flowing to the load, to the apparent power in the circuit. The aim of PFC is to make the load circuitry that is power factor corrected appear purely resistive (apparent power equal to real power). In this case, the voltage and current are in phase and the reactive power consumption is zero. The closer the number to one the better as this allows the most efficient delivery of electrical power (Source – Wikipedia).

PFC was pretty good, especially so past 60% load and it’s about on par with what we see from most PSUs these days.