Over the past few years we have really seen the Small Form Factor market grow, especially when it comes to small easy to transport gaming PCs, or what we call LAN Rigs. Early in 2013 I upgraded our Lunchbox 2 by upgrading the cooling and opening up room for airflow with a new SFX power supply from Silverstone. Later when I built Lunchbox 3 I used the same model of power supply. Why didn’t I change it up? Well not only did the first 450 watt SFX power supply perform reliably for me, but also frankly there just wasn’t any other competition. Silverstone had the highest wattage in the form factor not to mention the only SFX power supply with modular cabling. Well today we have the chance to check out the new top dog in SFX power supplies, Silverstone’s 600W SST-SX600-G.

Product Name: Silverstone SFX Series 600W SST-SX600-G

Review Sample Provided by: Silverstone

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

**Disclaimer**

LanOC Reviews only covers the features of power supplies due to not having the equipment to test them up to our standards. Because of this you will not see a performance section, a final verdict, or awards. Therefore we prefer to call this a preview rather than a review. Thank you for understanding; we keep our standard to the absolute highest for you, our reader.

Packaging

If you put the new 600 Watt SFX power supply’s box next to the older 450 Watt version you would have to take a closer look before you really noticed the differences. It has the same black and orange color scheme with flames in the background. The front of the box has a list of features highlighted along with a photo of the power supply. Really on the cover you will most likely only catch that the wattage is higher and also the new gold 80 Plus ranking. They slipped a short specification listing onto the side of the box with a few details like dimensions, color, and what type of fan is used. The back of the box is focused on a few graphs showing its official 80 Plus Gold efficiency graph and a few other performance graphs.

Inside the box the power supply comes wrapped up in bubble wrap to keep it safe. Along side of it you get a bundle of cables but I will go into detail on those in the next section. Silverstone also includes a small bag of screws and an adapter plate to go from a standard ATX hole to SFX. As I mentioned on the previous SFX power supply, I would prefer them to at least paint or powder coat that adapter, when I used it on the Lunchbox 2 I had to have it powder coated black so it wouldn’t stand out. You also get a little bit of documentation as well in the form of a small user guide and a paper on this being a new wattage milestone for such a small size.

Photos and Features

The side of the power supply is the only place you even see the name of the power supply. Silverstone kept things clean and simple on the rest of the power supply. As mentioned before this is an SFX power supply, at its widest point it is less than 5 inches wide. The casing has a satin black finish all over with the exception of the gold lettering on the side sticker. The side sticker has a breakdown of the amperage for each rail as well as the wattage breakdown. The rest of the sticker is filled with all of the standard regulatory logos. Silverstone did still slip in the 80 Plus Gold ranking though. This is important to keep in mind because not only did they increase the wattage, but the lower wattage model is also a lower efficiency rating.

The SST-SX600-G is a full modular power supply including the 24-pin motherboard cable. To help there is a layout sticker under the connections that shows what each plug handles although other than the CPU and PCIe plugs there should be no confusion. To help with that Silverstone color coded the PCIe plug to match the cable as well.  

On the back of the power supply, we have honeycomb ventilation and the power connection. What is interesting though is the lack of a power switch.

I really like the embossed Silverstone logo, it’s simple and not to in your face.

For cooling the SST-SX600-G has an 80mm intake fan on the bottom. The vent is built into the casing, full ATX power supplies will normally use a separate fan grill, but building it into the case saves a little room internally.

Beyond the wattage, the next biggest change was actually with the modular cables. Silverstone went from the sleeved cables to a flat flexible cable. This is a huge change, especially when you consider how small the builds are that use SFX power supplies. The 24-pin cable is split into two flat cables to keep it thin and workable. For cables you get the following.

- 24-pin motherboard power

- 8/4 pin CPU power cable

- PCIe cable with two 6/8 pin connections

- A SATA cable with 4 SATA connections

- A Molex cable with two Molex connections and one 4-pin floppy 

As expected, they also include a thick power cable as well.

To really get an idea of just how small a SFX power supply really is I put it with a standard ATX power supply. As you can see it is substantially smaller in every possible way.  

When we put the 600 watt version next to the 450 watt version we can see just how big of a change the new cables are, both for usability and also aesthetics. Additionally whole they both have the same sized fan, the 450 watt version has a different fan with glossy blades where the new 600 watt versions fan is flat black. This is reflected in the specifications as well, the new fan doesn’t even turn on until the power supply hits 45 degrees Celsius.

Overall

Sadly we just aren’t equipped to be able to test the SST-SX600-G up to our standards, because of that as you may have noticed we don’t do performance testing on our power supply coverage. Additionally without testing I can’t do a pros and cons or any awards, I would really hate to give out an award and then find out later there were issues that I couldn’t see because of our limited testing. That said I would highly recommend checking out the testing that both HardOCP and JohnnyGURU did to see just how well the performance is. That said I have been extremely impressed with the upgraded power supply.

Over the past years I was very happy with the 450 watt version and frankly I have yet to find a need in any small form factor build for more wattage using ITX sized video cards. But having 600 watts and a higher efficiency opens up things even more for builds that have room for a full length video card. The change from standard sleeving to the flat and flexible cables was also a big help as well. Not only will the new cables be easier to route but they also look a LOT better as well. Once again Silverstone has released another SFX power supply that just doesn’t have any completion. I’ve heard rumors that another power supply company has been looking to bring out something to compete with Silverstone but currently there haven’t been any announcements. Being able to pack this high of a wattage into such a small form factor is a real accomplishment.

Author Bio

Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org

Editor-in-chief

You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.