Silverstone SST-SX600-G 600w Gold SFX

I'm insane :p

2014-09-20_SLI-Testbed-parts.jpg


Will put this testbed together when I get off work in a few hours and see if the 600W survives :)
 
backfeed said:
Sweet kit!

It can't possibly be what you'll be using in your case project, right? :D

Oh, and thanks a bunch for the fan graph!
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That's the plan, once I saw those TDP/power consumption numbers for the GTX 980 and did the math and realized the 600W should just barely run two of them in SLI I just had to try it out.

Hexacore and SLI 980s in a box almost half the volume of the Prodigy will be just too awesome.
 
Rorschach said:
As many pics as you can Aibohphobia please. :)
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I'll definitely post some pics of the completed testbed :)

WiSK said:
You'll be fine :)

Maybe best not to try furmark+prime95 though ;)
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Huh, that's all I'm going to try :D

I dabble in 3D rendering and the renderer I use hits both CPU and GPU pretty hard so I want to be sure the 600W can handle the worst case scenario.

I'll run a test first with a bigger PSU and monitor it's power draw so I'll know beforehand if it can handle the load. I've done quite a bit of number crunching over the last fews so I'm pretty sure it'll work.

EDIT:

Not too impressed with EVGA so far on the motherboard at least. Manual is very skimpy, IO shield is the basic cheap stamped stuff like you find on $50 mobos, and when I opened up the CPU latch to inspect the socket before installing the CPU I found this:

2014-09-20_EVGA-Fail.jpg


Looks like a bit of that tacky stuff that was used to stick the CPU installation guide to the socket cover, luckily I had the dust blower for my camera on hand and it came out without issue but that is pretty annoying to find on a $250 motherboard.

EDIT 2:

Got it put together and Windows installed with just a single card for now, just waiting on the drivers to download to start stress testing.

2014-09-20_SLI-Testbed_Single-Card.jpg


Larger Image

You can see in the top right corner of the pic a Brand Electronics 4-1850 power meter I just got. Should be more accurate than the Kill-A-Watt I was using before.

Another annoyance with the EVGA board is the CPU socket is really low down on the board so my Noctua NH-C12 didn't fit in any orientation (though it's partially my fault for not checking beforehand). I tried a Phanteks top-down cooler but it overhung the PCIe slot in every orientation too. Luckily there was a AIO water cooler at the shop that I could use instead.
 
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Wow, took much longer than I thought it would to get everything ready for testing but it's finally underway and I have the results from a single GPU run.

Here's a pic of the test setup first:

2014-09-20_SLI-Testbed-Measurement-Setup.jpg


Larger

Took readings after 15min of FurMark (1920x1080 2xMSAA) and Prime95 (max heat/power consumption setting, 11 threads so FurMark won't bottleneck)

(I'll make pretty graphs later)

AC draw: 328W

PSU fan: 1570RPM

PSU exhaust: 32.2°C

Edit: The power draw is very close to what I had calculated. HardOCP got about 90% effiency at 50% load so that puts my DC load at about 295W. TechPowerUp shows about 190W DC draw on the GTX 980 (they're measuring at the PCIe slot and PCIe connectors) and Tom's Hardware shows about 122W DC load on their 5960X. 190W + 122W = 312W, pretty close to my results :)


AFD said:
Whoa, that will be awesome! And everyone thought that only a very small percentage would ever consider dual cards in your case.. now it's 100%!
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Yes, SLI GTX 980s is a bit extreme but dual 970s and especially the eventual 960 will be very compelling.

AFD said:
Yes, but in a good way ;)
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I think we all are in this sub-forum, always wanting the most powerful rig in the smallest volume possible while making the least amount of noise :p
 
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dnoiz said:
What is that fan we see on top? Can you list your parts (if not done already)?

Cheers.
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That is a Corsair SP120 Quiet Edition. I am hoping to get a pair of Noctuas to replace that SP120 and add an additional fan, but I need to do some cutting to the top of the case for that second 120mm with my new Dremel I just bought this past week.

Here are the components of my setup:

Case: Silverstone SG08-Lite
Mobo: ASRock Z77e-i
CPU: i5 2500K
GPU: EVGA GTX770 2gb
RAM: 8gb Crucial Balistix 1866Mhz
HDD1: Samsung Evo 120gb
HDD2: WD Black 1gb (2.5")

I have on order from Amazon, 2 Silverstone CP11B SATA cables which are very thin and best for ITX/SFF cases.

Then I also have this bracket (XSPC 120mm Universal RadStand Radiator Mounting Bracket Set) on order so I can that second 120mm fan with some case mods. Then I hope to add a 240mm RAD for both my CPU and GPU.

418pJF2UKgL._SX425_.jpg


I OC'd my 770 last night and didn't get any noise or issues from the PSU like some have experienced, hoping it stays this way.
 
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Ugh, the second card doesn't work in the bottom slot. You would think if it can run the slots in x16 / x8 / x4 it could also run them in x16 / x4 / x8. It's stupid, putting the second card in the bottom slots gives the top card room to breathe AND frees up a slot for a PCIe SSD/WiFi card/sound card/etc. It's the logical setup if you have a 5-slot mATX case. Sure there's not as much a selection to pick from but the 350D and Prodigy/Colossus/Phenom cases all have 5 slots and are fairly popular so there are choices. Maybe they can fix it in a BIOS update, otherwise I see a 5930K in my future. If anyone's willing to trade + cash let me know.

/RANT

Anyway, I got SLI running with the second card in the second slot so in about 30 minutes we'll either confirm the SX600-G as the most awesome SFX PSU evar or I'll have spent a bunch of money for nothing :p

Rorschach said:
Thank you for the tests.
Ha! I see an IntelliMouse, i have one as well. :)
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I love them, awesome mice. Too bad the new versions aren't of the same quality. Whenever people trade in their old computers I try to make sure to nab the IntelliMice for the bench stations because I like them so much.
 
Pic

2014-09-20_SLI-Testbed-SLI.jpg


Excuse the mess of wires :D

Preliminary idle power draw is 57W. It's amazing how efficient modern CPUs and GPUs are at idle.
 
Rorschach said:
Now those are some serious extensions :D
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I'm not too impressed with them actually, I meant to order 8-pin to dual 6-pin adapters (which is fine, 8-pin is rated for 150W, while 6-pin is rated for 75W) but accidentally ordered 6-pin to dual 6+2-pin adapters (75W rated connector to dual 150W rated connectors!?!). This adapter really shouldn't exist.

Since I only need dual 6-pin it should've been fine but the wires are 20awg! Since these are efficient cards the amperage per wire should be low enough to not be an issue but I'm keeping an eye on them with a thermal imager to be safe.

(Note, I am not an electrical engineer so take anything I say about electricity with a grain of salt)
 
Ok, it's getting late and I only got two hours sleep last night so I'll crunch the numbers and make the graphs tomorrow.

For now here's some of the results from the SLI load test:

top card: 87°C 3610 RPM! (this is why running the cards right next to each other is so dumb)

bottom card: 80°C 2230 RPM

AC draw: 512W

PSU Exhaust temp: 35.6°C

PSU fan: 2200 RPM

So this got the PSU fan to full speed but I'm impressed with the PSU temp, if it can draw fresh air it seems to stay pretty cool.

I'm not so impressed with the top card's temps and fan RPM but that's to be expected since I couldn't put the second card in the bottom slot like I wanted.

AC draw is a little lower than I calculated and what I expected considering the numbers from the single GPU test. I suspect the top card was throttling reducing the overall power consumption.

All things considered it looks like running a 5820K and SLI GTX 980s on the SX600-G is indeed feasible (at least at stock clocks).


Here's some thermograms for fun:

2014-09-20_SLI-Testbed-Thermogram-1.jpg


You can see the difference in temps between the top and bottom cards.


2014-09-20_SLI-Testbed-Thermogram-2.jpg


I'm impressed with how cool the VRMs stayed considering they were only getting a little bit of airflow from the fan on the radiator and nothing else.

Rorschach said:
I meant long. Looks so wire-lysh. :)
Yeah that's thin.
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Ah, gotcha.
 
Did you remove the removable section from the backplate of the 980's? That supposedly helps with cooling when cards are sandwiched next to each other in SLi.
 
As there's still no SFX-L topic I guess I'll post this here :p
Did some research on those tiny buggers and after Silverstone and Scythe I found another one:

https://translate.google.com/transl...ttp://www.expreview.com/35365.html&edit-text=

Never heard of the brand so it might be exclusive to the Chinese market, but maybe anyone has a clue on these :)
If SFX-L truly takes of maybe we'll see some from other major brands, I know I might buy one of those :) (Looking at you seasonic, you currently hold no high watt sfx psu's in your line at all :p)
 
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JoepieDeSnoepie! said:
As there's still no SFX-L topic I guess I'll post this here :p
Did some research on those tiny buggers and after Silverstone and Scythe I found another one:

https://translate.google.com/transl...ttp://www.expreview.com/35365.html&edit-text=

Never heard of the brand so it might be exclusive to the Chinese market, but maybe anyone has a clue on these :)
If SFX-L truly takes of maybe we'll see some from other major brands, I know I might buy one of those :) (Looking at you seasonic, you currently hold no high watt sfx psu's in your line at all :p)
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Funny thing is, High Power/Sirfa is actually the OEM for the 500W SFX-L unit ;)

Too bad that review didn't actually test the thing or even take it apart.
 
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Aibohphobia said:
So this got the PSU fan to full speed but I'm impressed with the PSU temp, if it can draw fresh air it seems to stay pretty cool.
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Since you have a thermal imager, it would be very interesting if you could examine the psu with it (through the intake and exhaust vents), looking for hot spots?

Aibohphobia said:
All things considered it looks like running a 5820K and SLI GTX 980s on the SX600-G is indeed feasible (at least at stock clocks).
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Indeed. Very interesting! Many thanks for doing this!

The stock psu fan running at full speed might be a dealbreaker though; how noisy does it get?

Edit: This test was running synthetic max load benchmarks, right? Regular gaming loads will be a lot lower, so the psu fan will surely not have to run at full speed then.
 
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backfeed said:
Since you have a thermal imager, it would be very interesting if you could examine the psu with it (through the intake and exhaust vents), looking for hot spots?
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I tried a little but it was hard to see anything through the vents. I did notice that the part of the grill under the AC inlet was much warmer than the air coming out of the rest of the grill. The AC inlet is seems to be blocking the airflow from the fan but while the air felt warmer what I could see through the imager didn't look much hotter than the rest of the PSU.

backfeed said:
Indeed. Very interesting! Many thanks for doing this!
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You're welcome, it's been fun doing these tests and I'm learning a lot. If I can get the second card into that bottom slot like I want so they both run at reasonable RPMs I'll come back to testing sound levels.

backfeed said:
The stock psu fan running at full speed might be a dealbreaker though; how noisy does it get?
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It was hard to distinguish the PSU fan over the noise from the top card.

Edit: Once I can get the second card running in the bottom slot I'll do a lot more noise testing. Right now it's pointless because the top card drowns everything else out.

I've done some digging but I haven't come across any suitable replacement fans yet. The Sanyo Denki 9GA0812H7001 is the closest I've come across. I actually have several of these that I got to test as possible ST45SF-G replacement fans. It would run at lower speeds compared to the stock fan but if the PSU is able to intake fresh air I don't think that will too much of a problem. The noise from the ball bearing is distinctly noticeable at low speeds though, maybe some will consider it a worthwhile tradeoff from the slight chattering of the stock fan but they're both annoying.

Unfortunately I haven't found any 80x15mm fans with FDB or something similar at the RPMs needed to work here :(

One off the wall idea I had was to make a SFX-L sized case for the 600W and put the AC inlet on the bottom of the PSU to make room for a slim 120mm fan:

Silverstone_ST45SF-G.png


backfeed said:
Edit: This test was running synthetic max load benchmarks, right? Regular gaming loads will be a lot lower, so the psu fan will surely not have to run at full speed then.
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Yes, FurMark and Prime95. If I have time today I'm going to try some other benchmarks and some gaming.
 
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Aibohphobia said:
One off the wall idea I had was to make a SFX-L sized case for the 600W and put the AC inlet on the bottom of the PSU to make room for a slim 120mm fan
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Can easier put it down on the side - it's too long otherwise



(pretend the radiator isn't there and that the shroud holds the fan too)
 
JoepieDeSnoepie! said:
As there's still no SFX-L topic I guess I'll post this here :p
Did some research on those tiny buggers and after Silverstone and Scythe I found another one:

https://translate.google.com/transl...ttp://www.expreview.com/35365.html&edit-text=
Click to expand...

I'm not too sure of the point. 100 less watts and 30mm longer. It could fit a 120mm fan as opposed to an 80mm, sure, but the SX600-G runs cold enough as is. I'd imagine it's for people running server builds with no ventilation.
 
GioG said:
I'm not too sure of the point. 100 less watts and 30mm longer. It could fit a 120mm fan as opposed to an 80mm, sure, but the SX600-G runs cold enough as is. I'd imagine it's for people running server builds with no ventilation.
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Smaller fans make a higher pitch noise at the same decibel, which is more intolerable. Also, the 120mm fan in the SFX-L max out at 1500rpm so there's lower ceiling to the amount of noise it can make. The 80mm fan in the SX600-G max out at 2200rpm. The extra 100W is not really useful for single GPU systems, and with Nvidia Maxwell 2 that's even more so.
 
We should crowd fund the ultimate fan for our SFX psus. :)
Anyone with expertise in this field?

And/or yes, i like the perforated case with a 120 mm fan.
 
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Rorschach said:
We should crowd fund the ultimate fan for our SFX psus. :)
Anyone with expertise in this field?

And/or yes, i like the perforated case with a 120 mm fan.
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I looked into it when I learned the Gentle Typhoons were being discontinued because my dream fan would be a GT with PWM and FDB with a black frame with red blades :). From my research it seems the industry is centered around big commercial orders and I didn't really find much of use for an individual wanting to get a small run made.

I think we'd be better off pestering Silverstone for a higher wattage SFX-L unit though. Even with a better quality fan there is no getting around the laws of physics and for low-noise a 120mm fan is the way to go.
 
Backfeed, ran Unigine Valley with the Extreme HD benchmark.

93.8 FPS

3923 Score

The power use fluctuated between 250W-400W depending on the scene.

The fan RPM was between 1350-1450 RPM the entire run and the exhaust temp got up to 30.2°C (ambient was 25.5°C).

Edit:

Here's the graph of the data I collected.

GPU 1 is the top card and GPU 2 the bottom card.

CPU/GPU temps and RPMs taken from HWMonitor

2014-09-21_Testbed-Results.png


I don't think the 12V measurement is right, I measured that by sticking the multimeter probes in the molex connector but I suspect that's not correct way to measure PSU voltage. Either that or my sample is particularly awesome at voltage regulation :p

Edit 2: I did a little write-up over on OCN for anyone who hasn't been keeping up with this thread: http://www.overclock.net/t/1473730/cowcotland-silverstone-600-watt-gold-modular-sfx-psu-cebit-2014/140_20#post_22885211
 
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cowsgomoo said:
Smaller fans make a higher pitch noise at the same decibel, which is more intolerable. Also, the 120mm fan in the SFX-L max out at 1500rpm so there's lower ceiling to the amount of noise it can make. The 80mm fan in the SX600-G max out at 2200rpm. The extra 100W is not really useful for single GPU systems, and with Nvidia Maxwell 2 that's even more so.
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Assuming one didn't mind voiding the warranty, swapping out the fans (or outright plugging the fan elsewhere and configuring with speedfan) would be a better solution. I wouldn't recommend that to most due to the warranty and safety thing, but that extra 100w could mean the difference in a CPU or GPU. If one bought a 7970 or a GTX 480, especially if overclocking is in mind, that extra wattage would be appreciated; AMD's next GPU might be on the power hungry side as well. Overall, I'd rather have a smaller extension with a 92mm fan attached.
 
Aibohphobia said:
On my case design the plug would have to be on the back. It may have to stick out a bit but there's room in the design.
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Are you handy with soldering? I assume so. I was thinking actually you can remove the socket from the filtering PCB and run 16 AWG between them. That way you could have the socket somewhere else. Even replace it by one with an on/off switch.
 
WiSK said:
Are you handy with soldering? I assume so. I was thinking actually you can remove the socket from the filtering PCB and run 16 AWG between them. That way you could have the socket somewhere else. Even replace it by one with an on/off switch.
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Actually I've somehow managed to avoid learning how to solder so far :p

It's definitely on my list of things to do in the near future though.

I hadn't thought of that but that would be perfect. I could just stick the bulk of it somewhere in the leftover space and keep the inlet where it would normally be.
 
Rorschach said:
We should crowd fund the ultimate fan for our SFX psus. :)
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Or an aftermarket SFX-L enclosure that fits the SX600 internals (or ST45 guts) with a better quality 120mm fan?

Basically, an SFX to SFX-L conversion kit.
 
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