SilverStone Packs 700 W Into Teeny SFX-L Power Supply

[N.Broekhuijsen]

SilverStone's latest SFX PSU can push up to 700 W. Who's thinking dual-GPU graphics card in a Mini-ITX case?

SilverStone Packs 700 W Into Teeny SFX-L Power Supply : Read more

 

[Onus]

Sorry, but without pricing or availability, this article is nothing more than fortune-telling. I can do it too: "Seasonic is going to release an 800W 80+ Platinum TFX PSU. It will be fully modular. No word yet on pricing or availability."

 

[cenpjas]

Whist you are correct Onus, you can make that statement. I would suggest you think about Silverstone's past history. We currently have PSU's upto 600W, which nobody else does, and they are stating we will have a new SFX-L PSU upto 700W with an impressive efficiency. This is news, its not a review.

Pricing, well its not going to be cheap, availability wise I suppose I would look at the time taken between announcements and product in hand for other PSU's in the same range to get an estimate.

 

[Vlad Rose]

I think there's more credibility there though since it was Silverstone themselves that stated the new PSU coming out.

Be careful though as these new 'L' series of power supplies claim compatibility with their Silverstone RVZ01 cases, but only under a new revision of the case that they didn't mention was done. Original owners of the case are left out in the cold as a result; same with those who are shipped cases from a retailer's back stock. While the PSU fits, the fan is blocked as a result, making for an unsightly dremel tool mod.

 

[buzznut]

So its really cool, I like to see this. Typically 600W is plenty for single GPU setups. 700W is not quite enough for 2 cards. Yes, its for SFF but there are builders who will try to cram 2 cards in a SFF box.

But I do like a little headroom in my power supplies so I really can't argue with 700W. So good stuff all around, but I wouldn't mind a 800W unit.

 

[Larry Litmanen]

Great to see more choices in SFF format from a great company. Not having a beefy PSU is an obstacle when it comes to building a small PC. Now that obstacle is gone.

 

[FritzEiv]

Sorry, but without pricing or availability, this article is nothing more than fortune-telling. I can do it too: "Seasonic is going to release an 800W 80+ Platinum TFX PSU. It will be fully modular. No word yet on pricing or availability."

So Onus, you're saying that in the future you'd rather not know about a product that we have early details on unless those details also include pricing and availability? Or are you saying you don't believe the author, in which case I can personally verify the information because I was on the message from SilverStone too. So which is it? The author is lying; you don't want the information when we get it; Silverstone is lying; or maybe you just woke up on the wrong side of the bed Seriously though: for years commenters tormented us because we published things late; we took that criticism to heart and we've made it our mission not to get outscooped, and while sometimes we do, I feel like we've improved by leaps and bounds; we don't source other publications, we have worked hard to establish and strengthen relationships with all of the companies we report on. So now we get tormented for . . . publishing too early? Sorry but thank you to all of those who downvoted that comment.

Fritz Nelson, Editor-in-chief

 

[dudmont]

What's the point of having a PSU that can handle two cards when no ITX board has more than 1 pcie slot? Is there an ITX build possible that uses 700 watts even with major O/Cing? That being said, I'm sure it's nice and works well, probably tells funny jokes too.

 

[Onus]

Oh, I believe the author. I do not call someone a liar except very directly.
Without availability in particular though, the article is meaningless. Of course someone is going to build a PSU like this. Without knowing when though, an article like this doesn't tell us much, nor inform a buying decision. Remember how bent people used to get at "vaporware;" software that was supposed to do wonderful things, but never materialized, or showed up very late, and had perhaps discouraged people from selecting a competitor's product? This too, is vaporware, without more concrete information, or, as I called it, fortune-telling, since a similar statement like "Seasonic will release an 800W TFX PSU" is equally certain, and equally meaningless. Perhaps this announcement from Silverstone is to discourage people from looking as FSP, which also competes in this market?

 

[atheus]

From the article:

But this will be useful for powering a dual-GPU graphics card in a Mini-ITX case, although you'll really be pushing the power envelope of the SX700-LPT if you decide to take that route.

I'm a little puzzled by this statement (and to be honest many statements concerning PSU choices). The Titan Z's TDP is 375 watts. Even using ~175 watts for some insane CPU OC and cranking up the Titan Z's power consumption, you've still got quite a lot of headroom with a 700 watt PSU.

What is it that has people so tuned in to such high power PSU's for Non-SLI systems? With nVidia's Maxwell cards you've got even less reason to reach for bigger PSU's, yet it seems even as testers measure modest power numbers under stress test conditions they wind up suggesting a PSU that's almost double the max power draw they tested. What gives? If you're looking for peak efficiency wouldn't you want it to hit closer to 50% load when it's not at max stress (more typical usage)?

 

[turkey3_scratch]

What form factor cases do these fit in?

Edit: mITX, that's what I thought.

 

[FritzEiv]

Onus, let me see if I've got this right. You are equating your made up guess with something a manufacturer specifically told us. That manufacturer showed a picture from a marketing document, told us we'd see this at Computex next week, and that we could publish this information. Do we, or they, have a reputation for misleading people? We published it not because they said we could, but because we thought it was interesting.

If I follow your logic, then, perhaps it has been equally misguided of us to publish anything about the next Radeon, about Zen, about high bandwidth memory, about the Oculus Rift, about USB 3.1, or anything that anyone tells us, or shows us, but that does not have a ship date or a price. Maybe nobody should write about a new iPhone or a Samsung phone or an Apple Watch. Maybe we shouldn't write about Skylake, even if Intel tells us how it works and that it's coming some time in 2015, just because there's no price yet or an actual ship date. In fact, maybe we shouldn't believe anyone without those two factors in hand. Is that what you're suggesting?

Companies tell us things all the time, things they want published, for a variety of reasons -- to keep buyer's on the hook, to immobilize them until something is ready, to preempt one another. And sometimes because they want their information out there. Our filters involve determining if something is real, and if people will find it interesting, if people will at some point want that thing we're writing about. We cannot always intuit intent, and just because a company might not be ready to share the exact details (maybe they're figuring it out, maybe they are debating it internally, I don't know) doesn't automatically suggest that they should be doubted. Burning us in the past, or implausible contentions are good reasons to doubt. I don't see either of those here.

 

[laststop311]

perfect for ncase m1 users

 

[Haravikk]

To answer who's thinking of two GPUs in a Mini-ITX case; no-one, as Mini-ITX only supports a single PCIe slot.

If you mean a single card with two GPUs on it, then the answer is; only people with more money than sense, as these cards don't really offer good enough performance for the cost. Hell, Crossfire and SLI in general aren't good value IMO compared to just getting a better, single card; the main advantage is being able to get an affordable boost by slapping in a second card once the price has come down, but even then I would usually prefer to just replace with a newer card to avoid the hassle.

So eh… to me the main advantage of a 700w PSU is being able to run both a power hungry card and a better CPU. However, this is pretty much the opposite of what you want in a small form factor system as these things mean heat, and heat is the enemy in a small computer. Besides which, you can get very capable CPUs and GPUs that simply aren't all that power hungry anymore, so this seems like a product that's a few years too late to me.

 

[Onus]

It sounds like you DO have availability information then, which is a lot different, although we also know how annoyed and even frantic some people get when that new GPU launch is just a "soft launch" and no product is available. Think of all the people (myself included) who bought in to the marketing materials AMD released on Bulldozer. That was a rather painful lesson...
That's what I'm trying to point out.

 

[Dreamslacker]

What's the point of having a PSU that can handle two cards when no ITX board has more than 1 pcie slot? Is there an ITX build possible that uses 700 watts even with major O/Cing?

There are compact mATX cases that use an SFX PSU. You could run a compact dual card setup in them. E.g. In-Win BK series.

Alternatively, you can run 2 sets of cables to a single power hungry GPU to reduce resistive losses over running 1 set with 2 connectors (the resistive power loss is related to the square of the current draw across the conductors).

 

[Steveymoo]

What's the point of having a PSU that can handle two cards when no ITX board has more than 1 pcie slot? Is there an ITX build possible that uses 700 watts even with major O/Cing? That being said, I'm sure it's nice and works well, probably tells funny jokes too.

Think, dual GPU single cards. Titan Z, r9 295x2.

 

[Arabian Knight]

you know , there are upto 1400 watts 1u power supplies out ther for long time and Platinum rated as well

and they are even smaller

40X80 mm and vary in length from 200mm to 280,, to 320mm .... which is no big deal since most cases are more than 350mm deep

I think Silverstone should try manufacture these kinds of powersupply with lower noise ... the only drawback of 1u power is the 40 mm fans that are noisy , but this can be avoided by using several 80 fans on the side of the PSU.

I wish that the 1u standard replaces the ATX standard in all PC Cases ...

they are 1/3 hight .. and can reach 1400 watts ... and we need more compact mATX cases

 

[Arabian Knight]

To answer who's thinking of two GPUs in a Mini-ITX case; no-one, as Mini-ITX only supports a single PCIe slot.

If you mean a single card with two GPUs on it, then the answer is; only people with more money than sense, as these cards don't really offer good enough performance for the cost. Hell, Crossfire and SLI in general aren't good value IMO compared to just getting a better, single card; the main advantage is being able to get an affordable boost by slapping in a second card once the price has come down, but even then I would usually prefer to just replace with a newer card to avoid the hassle.

So eh… to me the main advantage of a 700w PSU is being able to run both a power hungry card and a better CPU. However, this is pretty much the opposite of what you want in a small form factor system as these things mean heat, and heat is the enemy in a small computer. Besides which, you can get very capable CPUs and GPUs that simply aren't all that power hungry anymore, so this seems like a product that's a few years too late to me.

you know , using 700 watts means less heat as well .. the power supply wont heat up if not stressed to the max .

a 500 watts Machine with a 700 watts Power supply will run cool and quiet .

as for your dual GPU not needed in small pc , you are wrong ... the AMD R9 295x2 are exactly double the price of the R9 290x , and offer double the performance.

the only thing that stopped us from using it in small PC was the 500 watts needed for this monster.

and this card runs cool and silent , it is water cooled.