External Appearance

While the SX700-LPT obviously is very small compared to an ATX PSU, it does not actually adhere to SFX specifications either. It is being labeled as an "SFX-L" design, with its chassis measuring 125 × 63.5 × 125 mm (W×H×D). Essentially, it is 25 mm longer than a standard SFX PSU. The longer chassis allowed SilverStone to fit more components and a 120 mm cooling fan, but it could very easily cause compatibility issues with some cases that do not have any extra space behind the PSU.

The chassis is sprayed with a satin black paint that is fingerprint resistant. Oddly, SilverStone punched their company logo along the top side and placed the sticker with the electrical specifications and certifications on the left side of the chassis. It is likely that the company expects the top of the PSU to be more frequently visible than its side, but such aesthetic improvements are of questionable value on such products, as cases that require SFX PSUs rarely have windowed panels anyway.

The rear of the SX700-LPT is somewhat interesting in its own way. There is only an AC cable receptacle and an on/off switch, yet such a switch is relatively rare on SFX designs. The connectors for the modular cables can the seen at the front side of the unit, with the PCI Express cable connectors being blue and every other connector being black.

 

Internal Design

Zhen Poweryear is the supplier of the thin 120 mm fan found inside the SX700-LPT. It has a black frame but semi-transparent tinted blades. We could not find specific information on the PY-12015H12S, but it appears to be a sleeve bearing engine fan and has a maximum speed of about 1700 RPM.

Most of SilverStone’s SFX PSU designs come from Enhance, but this is not the case with the SX700-LPT, which is a Sirfa design. Naturally, everything is very densely packed due to the limited space, but the design is actually very clean for a high power SFX unit. The filtering stage begins at the back of the AC receptacle and continues on the main PCB, with four Y capacitors, three X capacitors and two filtering inductors in total.

 

The heatsink at the far right side of the PCB holds the active PFC components, two transistors and a diode. Rubycon supplies the PFC 420V/390μF capacitor. The main inversion stage is a half-bridge configuration with two MOSFETS, which are found on the heatsink near the center of the design. The secondary side conversion MOSFETs are at the underside of the PCB, while DC to DC conversion circuits can be seen on the vertical daughterboards. Nippon Chemi-Con supplies all of the secondary capacitors, electrolytic and solid-state alike.

 

Introduction, Packaging & Bundle Cold Test Results
Comments Locked

48 Comments

View All Comments

  • Valantar - Sunday, October 2, 2016 - link

    Lian Li recently launched some very interesting mATX/ATX cases limited to SFX-L PSUs. The point of this is that ATX PSUs - most of which exceed the ATX length spec, even, are a massive waste of space in most PCs. Just look how small the Cerberus is thanks to using a small PSU - and that's mATX with SFX-L. Having more choice is never a bad thing, and a wider selection of SFX/SFX-L PSUs will only add to the amount of cases supporting them. The current lack of cases, even for ITX, is simply due to there until recently being NO decent SFX PSUs for those of us wanting to use a GPU. SilverStone started this with their 500W SFX-L and 650W SFX, and others are jumping in. More cases = more PSUs again = more choice for users. This is good. We're growing past the need for huge towers being the norm for any and all PCs. With modern technology, a small, high-performance PC is more than feasible.
  • tb752 - Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - link

    Good day sir, it's 5 years on and I have an overclocked Strix 6800xt I'd like to put in an SFF case, so I'm glad this PSU exists!
  • xenol - Friday, September 30, 2016 - link

    I have no idea why this would need to exist other than being a dancing bear. I have a i7-6700 and a GTX 1080 in a mini ITX build and it pulls about 250W off the wall under load
  • DanNeely - Friday, September 30, 2016 - link

    Unless you've unclocked/volted your parts somewhat you're not at full load. Combined TDP for the two parts is 245W, which means that (ignoring your ram, chipset, ssd, fans, etc) you'd need a 98% efficient PSU to only hit 250W; and as edziebra noted above higher end parts can put an mITX build well past the sweet spot on a 500W unit. In particular while a Titan is an exceptionally exotic beast; assuming that a future generation of AMD and NVidia GPUs ends up much more competitive in performance/watt, we'll probably see 250-300W mainstream cards again.
  • BrokenCrayons - Friday, September 30, 2016 - link

    I doubt xenol's system, when loaded pulling 250W will require over 250W more if its asked to do as much as absolutely possible. A 500W PSU is _very_ reasonable for a single GPU & single CPU system. Since power supply manufacturers have begun to compete more aggressively with one another, the idea of what people think they need to feed their PCs has climbed too. Often the rated output of a PSU an end user thinks is necessary is far in excess of what's actually needed for a given scenario. It seems the most oft cited reason for the unused headroom is "future upgrades" which I don't think is reasonable in a world where most consumer computer parts are designed first with mobility in mind where power and heat constraints are significant rather than the less limited desktop environment that's now playing second (well maybe 3rd or 4th behind phones, tablets, and laptops) chair.
  • Samus - Saturday, October 1, 2016 - link

    380-530 watts is the perfect window for a single CPU/GPU system, depending on the CPU/GPU. You don't want to ever run your PSU over 80% load, but you don't really want to run it under 10% load, either.

    I typically build my PC's to use 60-70% of the PSU capacity at maximum load to leave room for overclocking, adding another drive/memory, etc. I just assume if I'm going to upgrade the video card it'll be the same tier generational bump which is typically around the same TDP (770 to 970 to 1070 have all been within 30 watts of each other.)

    Basically, you don't want to put a 800 watt PSU in a single GPU system and you don't want a 500 watt PSU in a dual GPU system. It's safe to assume 100 watts for each Intel CPU+chipset (150 watts for each AMD CPU+chipset) and 200 watts for each video card. RAM 3 watts/DIMM, SSD/HDD 5 watts each, fans 2 watts, liquid cooling 5 watts, DVD 5 watts, PCIe cards are a variable 10-70 watts depending on the card, with most 1x being 10-25 watts.
  • TheinsanegamerN - Monday, October 3, 2016 - link

    Or go by actual wattage instead of rounded numbers. The CPU portion of i7 chips doesnt pull 100 watt, hasnt since sandy bridge. Unless you OC and OV to the moon, of course. GPUs like the 1070 only pull about 150 watt.
  • xenol - Monday, October 3, 2016 - link

    I was monitoring the wattage while running the GTA V benchmark. I don't measure when running Prime95 + Furmark since that's not a typical scenario and usually is deliberately caused.

    TDP is also not power consumption.
  • wolfemane - Friday, September 30, 2016 - link

    I have to agree with the consensus that a 700w Sfx psu is a bit much.

    But your numbers don't add up. I'm running an i3-6100 with an EVGA 1080 and seeing max load at the wall peaking at 290w playing WoW and 305w playing Doom, witcher 3, and Fallout 4. I'm using a kill-a-watt to measure at the wall.
  • usernametaken76 - Friday, September 30, 2016 - link

    These types of comments are leaving me scratching my head. I have an overclocked 6600K and an AMD R9 Nano, also overclocked and both are water cooled. I have two intake fans (on on a 120mm rad) and 2 exhaust (both on a 240mm radiator.)

    When I had a 450W PSU with the AMD R9 Nano and an AMD 65W processor, the thing *shut down* when overclocked.

    750W is what AMD recommends for a Nano system. Even though it's 275W TDP max, there are going to be voltage spikes and you have to have headroom for overclocking.

    Then there are multiple SSDs, an HDD, an NZXT HUE+ lighting system, USB devices, etc.

    There's nothing wrong with buying a platinum certified 700W PSU for this need. It's also one of the few high capacity SFX-L PSUs out there, and works fantastically well in a case such as the Fractal Design Nano S, with an SFX to ATX PSU adapter.

    And then finally, what do you folks suppose the cost difference is between a 500W and this 700W PSU? It's not enough to be arguing over whether someone (who is not you) needs that extra 200W. It's not like *any* PSU is drawing max current at all times, and it doesn't waste *more* power when it is drawing the power, so why does everyone feel the need to comment on what someone does or does not need?

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now