Silverstone SST-SX600-G 600w Gold SFX

silent mike said:
Our standards have not changed one iota since SPCR was started more than 12 years ago; if anything, our standards are higher than ever.
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Agreed! That's why SPCR has always been the only review source me and many others trust and care about when it comes to noise. You definitely deserve respect for your great work!
 
silent mike said:
Tony Ou pointed out this thread -- and your posts -- and naturally, I have some comments.

1) Your comparison of Comcast with SPCR is way off. There are many other ISPs in the world; there are no other computer hardware web sites that have acoustics as their core focus. No one even tries to measure SPL at 1m.

2) Our standards have not changed one iota since SPCR was started more than 12 years ago; if anything, our standards are higher than ever. We have the ability to measure/analyze accurately down to 10 dBA, even from 1m distance -- and we routinely do so; no one on the public web can offer anything even remotely close.

3) We have on average, a couple of indepth reviews/articles each week. For a special interest site, that's plenty of fresh content. Recommended pages were always time hogs & yeah, they've been neglected in part because every component review we do has a huge ranked table summarizing all key performance aspects of all previously reviewed comparables. This is better than the recommended pages for the thinking reader.

4) Then there's opinions, like "Quiet enough". Quiet enough for most users who might want to buy this thing. That's my opinion of the SS 600W SFX, based on all the measurements in our anechoic chamber, the extended listening, 12+ years of experience testing PC components for noise, the context of "what else is out there that can do what this component does?"

At under ~150W, our sample was below 15~16 dBA @1m. That's inaudible in the vast majority of cases, and 150W is high enough to cover idle & modest use for any small system in which a 600W PSU is appropriate. No, it isn't inaudible at 300W, unlike some ATX PSUs of the same rating, but no SFX PSU is inaudible at 300W. One only needs to look at the density of any SFX PSU to understand how difficult it is to cool w/o some concentrated airflow.

Of course a completely silent passive cooler is the extreme edge of silent computing. Passive cooling has always been, for desktop computing, and will continue to be until power envelopes drop to small laptop levels. You seem have no understanding the masking effect of ambient noise & its effect on aural perception: There is no audible difference between quieter than ambient and completely silent. It is in this realm, between ambient & 0 dB that silent computing can thrive w/o overheating, w/o 40 lb heatsink cases. If only passively cooled parts with zero SPL can be called silent computing, then there'd be no need for any acoustic measurements, no need for massively detailed roundups of fans, no need for all the work SPCR has done for 12+ years. The 2,325,124 reads of our stale not updated Recommended Cases articles suggests otherwise.
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Hi Mike,

Thanks for commenting. I want to say that I really appreciate the work you do over at SPCR and the forum members there. As a niche community I still consider you the standard by which all noise reviews can be made.

I've heard it said around here, and I agree, that no PC component is quiet until Mike says so.

That user was correct about the recommendations pages (and your reply is equally on point) so it's worth asking why you keep the "leaderboard" links up at all? While I do tend to read your reviews I often have my "lazy consumer" moments in which I want to quickly scan the top items you have reviewed. If I were you I might take my leaderboard content (which appears in every review) and stick that into a normalized database, then the "recommendations" page simply recalls that db, in a sortable table.
I'm not trying to tell you how to run your site, just making a suggestion based on how users may want to consume aggregated information.
 
Thanks for the back pats, gents. :cool:

Zangmonkey, your suggestion is appreciated. We've gone over data automation a bunch of times, and every time, we come up against exceptions that make the thing hard to pull off. In so many reviews, hardware limitations prevent an item to be measured in exactly the same way as the last handful. We fudge and adjust as needed, and of course, we end up with different SPL points or different RPM points, etc -- and none of this takes into account sound quality.

So the things remain manual for now.

Meanwhile, I admit I get lazy too :D and have been working recently on a round of updates for the Recom product pages. The heatsinks just got done.
 
silent mike said:
Tony Ou pointed out this thread -- and your posts -- and naturally, I have some comments.
*snipped*
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Mike, I appreciate the counter-points; it shares your perspective on the matter. Rather than go into another point-by-point rebuttal though, I'll just simply say this: I still disagree. Perhaps it's in our definition of silence. Mine is absolute silence even at full load; no perceivable difference from ambient/computer off, not even coil whine. If blindfolded, I should not be able to tell the difference between a computer that's on and one that's off, in the middle of the night while running Prime95 and Furmark at the same time, with no overheating. My old system was able to achieve this, and my current one compromises some noise (mostly coil whine) in exchange for a smaller footprint.

My personal feeling is that SPCR does not go extreme enough. Perhaps I'm at the extreme of the extreme, and that's fine; SPCR can't appeal to everyone. But I feel that, rather than trying to obtain the holy grail of silent computing, SPCR settles for "good enough", and while good enough is acceptable by most people ("this system is very quiet"), it does not appeal to people who strive for absolute silence ("I can't tell if this computer is on or not"). There are better resources out there for people who want to take the extra step in achieving silence nirvana, particularly when it comes to water cooling (SPCR only covers AIO units, which is only at the beginner level). SPCR might be a good starting point, but, at least for me, it's not the destination I want to arrive at.

By the way, it might be prudent to hide your affiliation with Silverstone's marketing manager, Tony Ou. I'm sure you're a trustworthy guy, but there are those who might question whether your reviews are honest, or whether they're being paid by Silverstone's coffers ;-).
 
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Ranma13 said:
By the way, it might be prudent to hide your affiliation with Silverstone's marketing manager, Tony Ou. I'm sure you're a trustworthy guy, but there are those who might question whether your reviews are honest, or whether they're being paid by Silverstone's coffers ;-).
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I notified Mike of this thread because we knew each other for 10 years and loved his site too. Coming to hardforum was his decision, we didn't pay him for it. We also have a laughably small coffer compared to many of our competitors, so we don't pay him for reviews either. If you ask around other websites, particularly those in North America, you'll find that we do not pay for reviews. In fact, we rarely pay anything so some websites use this against us when we approach them for reviews.

As a hardware enthusiasts myself, I used to also review products on the site I own before joining SilverStone so I still very much enjoy reading reviews today and respect the integrity of reviewers that work with me. Paying them for better review would be the last thing on my mind!

Hate to see this thread now becoming a bashing and defense of SilverStone and myself personally after we delivered a product that no one else wanted to make, a 600W SFX PSU no less! So I hope speculations/accusations like this can stop and we can focus back on SX600-G.
 
Tony Ou said:
I notified Mike of this thread because we knew each other for 10 years and loved his site too.
*snipped*
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I understand, Tony, and I personally don't feel like any money has been changed hands for a favorable review, or that Mike has been anything less that honest and analytic in his review. As a marketing manager though, you must understand what the public perception can be. Mike's [H] forum activity has been less than active, and his last post prior to the ones in this thread dates all the way back to 2007. His sudden re-appearance and defense of SPCR in a Silverstone thread, prompted by a Silverstone rep, is akin to a reviewer from IGN suddenly defending his Skyrim review because someone from Bethesda contacted him. Your history with the community has earned my trust, but someone unfamiliar with the situation may view things in a different light.

But getting back to the SX600-G. Perhaps I was too critical in the short time that I've owned one, and I would have liked to make better recordings of it (not much you can do with on-camera omni mics and no post-processing to remove floor noise). Unfortunately I've already returned it. I'd urge everyone to take what I've said about the SX600-G with a huge grain of salt, since I haven't really done my due diligence. If I had another crack at it, I'd definitely get my hands on a decent shotgun mic and try to get some recordings that actually represent its true noise characteristics.
 
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Hide my relationship with Tony? Because I come here to counter your criticisms of my site & review? That's absurd & insulting, and you're the j--k who suggests I'm paid to write a positive review, not anyone else.

Simple fact of life: Every reviewer has relationships with sample suppliers. Without such relationships, web reviewing would hardly exist.

SPCR goes plenty far, we uphold silence as golden but we do not dismiss every product that has a noise signature. :rolleyes:
 
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Ranma13, I feel your crusade for completely silent hardware reviews is unrealistic (I'm not saying impossible) and you shouldn't have made the claim that SPCR "lost it's way". Especially in this thread were it was already said multiple times that this PSU isn't the quietest, it is the quietest >300W SFX PSU. It achieved a lot less noise while gaining 33% more power which is still an accomplishment.

You are perhaps surprised that companies and reviewers "colaborate". Well, for them to maintain a healthy (business) relationship, this has to happen. In my opinion, we consumers benefit from this back & forth, because the experiences reviewers give back to the manfacturers, can be taken into account. I've seen this happen often with Anandtech where they sometimes go very deep into finding the origin of an issue (like with SSD's or motherboards) and they'll keep the public in the loop what is happening.
 
Phuncz said:
You are perhaps surprised that companies and reviewers "colaborate". Well, for them to maintain a healthy (business) relationship, this has to happen.
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Collaboration is fine and well-understood ("Hey, we have this product. Wanna review it for us?"). Having the reviewer come on a forum board he last visited 8 years ago, for the sole purpose of giving a scathing rebuttal to another member for sharing his opinion, which was prompted by a representative of the company he did the review for, is not.

silent mike said:
Hide my relationship with Tony? Because I come here to counter your criticisms of my site & review?
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Mike, you're obviously hurt that I've said something untoward about SPCR, but your reaction belies your status as a reviewer. You consider yourself as a professional reviewer, do you not? Then please act like one. Take criticism by improving the quality of your website and reviews, not by attacking those who voice opinions that you don't agree with. I am a nobody, whereas you're a representative for SPCR. Your posts hurt SPCR's reputation more than they can ever hurt my feelings. If you had been content to just ignore my post, it would have disappeared into the void. But by choosing to respond, you also chose to bring this issue into the limelight.

With that said, I shall respect Tony's wishes and vacate this thread; this shall be my last post here. I've said what I've come to say, and Mike's posts only further highlights how far SPCR's standards have fallen. If attacking forum members is SPCR's way of connecting with the community, then I shall leave. Mike's responses have done more damage than I ever could with one measly post that nobody cared about.

The spotlight is all yours, Mike. I'm out.
 
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Silence arguments aside, I'd like to know from Tony how the situation is with European orders?

The reseller who is directly affiliated with the distributor "sold out" within minutes, and all other online resellers that I checked are still showing "unknown" for expected availability.

So my questions:
- does Silverstone know if the European distributor was "fair" with preorders, or is it expected that they prefer certain resellers?
- are more coming? enough to cover all preorders?

:)
 
WiSK said:
So my questions:
- does Silverstone know if the European distributor was "fair" with preorders, or is it expected that they prefer certain resellers?
- are more coming? enough to cover all preorders?

:)
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- I know that their first shipment was quite limited, so they definitely didn't have enough for everyone. I wouldn't know how our European office should distribute them to be considered "fair" though.

- More are coming of course at the end of the month and also in the beginning of October so I hope we'll have everybody covered by then.
 
Tony Ou said:
I wouldn't know how our European office should distribute them to be considered "fair" though.
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Mathematically, by weighing the number of pre-orders from each reseller (or country). But that would require access to that information, of course, and I suspect it isn't really that simple. :)
 
Ranma13 said:
Collaboration is fine and well-understood ("Hey, we have this product. Wanna review it for us?"). Having the reviewer come on a forum board he last visited 8 years ago, for the sole purpose of giving a scathing rebuttal to another member for sharing his opinion, which was prompted by a representative of the company he did the review for, is not.
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The reviewer has every right to defend his site because you seem to attack it's credibility. I actually encourage it that this is taken into discussion instead of just being "moderated" away or left for dead. You maded your point, he defended his point with valid arguments. That is proper discussion.

Ranma13 said:
Take criticism by improving the quality of your website and reviews, not by attacking those who voice opinions that you don't agree with. I am a nobody, whereas you're a representative for SPCR.
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Because you had a point, doesn't mean it's valid for the majority. Most people can live with as little noise as reasonably possible, while you seem to want as little noise as absolutely possible. I find the SX600-G's review on SPCR, which merits the noise in relevance to the platform (SFX), more in touch with reality.

Just like with cars: Lexus and Mercedes flaunt silence inside the car for their lineups, but the noise they still produce is still a lot louder than most computers. But it is about the lowest in the industry (except maybe a ten times more expensive Rolls Royce or one-off's).
 
Tony Ou said:
I wouldn't know how our European office should distribute them to be considered "fair" though.
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Fair would be: pre-orders are be registered by date, and the distributor could be required contractually to prove that the relevant reseller was able to cover the first pre-orders.

Yes, I know that's a waste of money to implement, and people would fiddle it anyway.

What annoys me really is the choice I made myself ;) With the ST45SF-G I ordered at reseller Alternate (same postal address as Wave, the distributor) and got in the first batch. With this one I looked at the best price. I think the difference was only 10 euro, which at the time felt like a victory but if you offered it in my hands now for 15 euro I would pay :p
 
to the guys complaining here how the SFX PSU noise levels are;

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS!

Really! I will send all of you guys a PM of my physical address and would gladly that PSU for free!
I will pay for shipping!
 
jcagara08 said:
to the guys complaining here how the SFX PSU noise levels are;

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS!

Really! I will send all of you guys a PM of my physical address and would gladly that PSU for free!
I will pay for shipping!
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Well done! Did you learn to argue on the internet? :cool:

- Start with an ad hominem: "first world problems" suggests people who are complaining are oversensitive; people living on the poverty line would be happy with any PSU, noise would not bother them; therefore those who are complaining are just rich and spoiled.
- Is attempting to appeal to ridicule.
- Is also a red herring, since this is a pc enthusiast forum, most people with enough disposable income to buy pc components fall in this category; the whole forum is a first world problem.
- Close with a non-sequitur: if someone is disappointed with the product, then it logically follows that they want to send it to you, for nothing? The implication is that if they wouldn't send it to you for free, then it can't be that bad a product.
 
Ah is it done like that, with ?tag=hardfocom-20 ?
Then I would update a lot of my links :)
 
Phuncz said:
Ah is it done like that, with ?tag=hardfocom-20 ?
Then I would update a lot of my links :)
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Actually, it appears that [H] automagically parses all outgoing merchant link and appends the necessary referral tag. I have Noscript running with [H] allowed, but it still wasn't doing that :eek:
 
Hey guys, and fellow Europeans.
I can see that Alternate have it available from the 26th-ish. Could be like amazon though, so they will either move the date, or keep it at that
 
As I posted earlier, Alternate is your best bet if you want it quicker, because they are the sister company of the distributor.
 
I'm moving in four days and won't be able to take many deliveries, was really hoping an EU/UK retailer would have the PSU in stock in time for me to get one.
I was speaking to someone that works for one retailer who said that Caseking seemed to be getting the pick of everything.

I just hope Scans website is accurate and they get stock tomorrow.
 
Look what I found: http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=527&area=en
Soon :D

I think I'll go with the SX500-LG as I still haven't decided what hardware to use in my M1 v1.
It just hasn't been worth upgrading for me yet so the M1 will be in the box for now.
Would be really nice to see higher watt version of the SFX-L spec, maybe it's in time for a nice sky lake upgrade for me that would probably be worth upgrading tof from ivy bridge.

Anyways I think this format can be really populair, a lot of people like myself like silent over power and can't wait to read the first reviews. This might actually pull me over the line and buy me a broadwell setup for x-mass, surely it's in the shops by then.

And SPCR, or Mike, I really hope you'll be reviewing that SX500-LG, been reading your reviews for a whole decade now :D
 
backfeed said:
Aw, crap. I was without doubt the first to pre-order in Sweden (Inet), and the 16th of September has been the ETA for a very long time. Now it has changed to "delayed". 1st of October in Germany likely means 6th of October in Sweden, if there'll be anything left of that batch, that is. Hating the waiting. :p
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I contacted Inet, and they have apparently confirmed with their supplier that the delivery will arrive from Germany within the next couple of days.
 
xinux said:
I contacted Inet, and they have apparently confirmed with their supplier that the delivery will arrive from Germany within the next couple of days.
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Excellent, I hope it will come true, and that Inet also haven't forgotten who asked them to add SX600-G to their product catalog in advance just so he could pre-order. :D :cool:
 
Mine should be delivered today from Amazon. Depending on the noise I'll decide if I'm going to keep it and move my setup back to the SG08 or stick with the Air 240. Having some issues with panels on Air 240 which Corsair is trying to correct.
 
Just got my SX600 from Alternate.de.

Sbdn1rBl.jpg


I hooked it up to a Gigabyte Z87N, a 4790k and a GTX 760, so far the psu is pretty quiet. There was some slight coil whine as soon as I plugged the psu in, but it was gone after about 5 minutes. Now it's not even audible.
 
Spoke to scan, they couldn't get me one in time, neither could OCUK. Guess I'm going to have to wait a while to get my hands on one.
 
domp said:
I hooked it up to a Gigabyte Z87N, a 4790k and a GTX 760, so far the psu is pretty quiet. There was some slight coil whine as soon as I plugged the psu in, but it was gone after about 5 minutes. Now it's not even audible.
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Exactly my scenario as well, also with an i7 and 760.
And with the coil noise, only at the beginning and then disappearing in a few minutes.
 
My SX600-G came in yesterday and I have been running it now since last night and I do not hear the PSU so far considering the noise that people say they are hearing from it. I sit about 8-9 feet from my system and even when I was up close to it didn't hear anything. I will OC my 770 tonight to see how it handles the OC.

Here are some updated pics......I removed the DVD and HDD trays. I bought the Dremel today as I plan to mod the top of the case so I can get one more 120mm fan up top and then here at some point soon I can get that 240mm rad to cool both CPU and GPU.

LL


LL


LL


LL
 
I got a SX600-G to test out what it's capable of and since there's no info about the fan anywhere I opened the PSU up and took the fan out to get some info on it.

Mostly I was interested in the fan speed profile to get an idea of suitable replacement fans. The fan was tested just sitting in open air on top a desk, RPM was measured with a non-contact tachometer and the fan was powered from a multi-voltage DC power supply.

SX600-G_fan_RPM.png


Looks like your typical industrial type fan but Silverstone is running it at fairly low voltage to keep the RPMs down.
 
Fantastic graph Aibohphobia. I was planning to do this measurement myself, but I'm glad you've made the effort already. It means we can look for a similar fan now, with the intention of providing an alternative for noise-sensitive users.

Well done! :)
 
WiSK said:
Well done! :)
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Thanks, I figured the community here would appreciate some more data on the fan.

Rorschach said:
I've searched but i want to be sure.
Is this the fan that they we're using when they did the mod for the sfx 450w ?

http://www.blacknoise.com/site/en/p...fans/nb-blacksilent-pro-series/80x80x15mm.php

And will this also be good for the 600w ?
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That's the fan but I'm not sure that it's suitable for the 600W. The stock fan has a ridiculously high max RPM so the PSU is running it at fairly low voltages most of the time.

According to Silverstone, the fan speed at 100% load is 2290RPM which should be about 5.5V going by the chart. It's a 2-wire fan, no tach wire, so the PSU has no idea what speed the fan is running at so I assume there is just some temp/voltage curve it's using and 5.5V on that Noiseblocker is probably nowhere near enough airflow for this PSU considering how crammed the inside is.
 
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