Super Flower 500W Review

[decayed.cell]

Introduction
Having seen no fewer than two PSUs screw up on me

1) Simply didn't give enough power, thus system would randomly shut down. RMA'd the PSU, then when the system was on standby it just rooted itself
2) Overvolted, thus I had to RMA my motherboard, CPU, RAM.

And having seen no fewer than 4 friend's PSUs literally blow up with smoke , I decided to invest into something better (especially with my new X2 4200 setup :P).

So then I posted here for some help and was going to get the Topower 500W as reviewed here. However, upon arrival at MSY Clayton, I decided to go with the Super Flower 500W instead, just to be different .

First Looks
The first thing I noticed between the two power supplies was that the Topower one was definitely heavier. And 10 bucks more expensive - but as -weet*di- discovered, it came with a lot of extra crap i.e. Velcro cables. Also, the box was completely sealed off with some sort of plastic, so I couldn't open it up to check out the ratings.

So coming it at $89 was this:


Super Flower "Always Accompany You". Sounds yum cha. Extremely Silent - we'll see about that. BTX - meh. 4 Blue LED Fan, 14cm - now thats big , but is it bright and quiet? Black Diamond... I suppose thats the model (although I can't find it on the Super Flower website hah). And finally SLi Dual PCI-E - hey nots bad, something that the Topower doesn't have.


Now we have a look at the side of the box... theres some kind of graph, lots of features... switch for fan speeds - sounds pretty cool. Its even got a TORBO function - yum cha.


And on the other side... talk about confusing. Theres white boxes, and a couple of yellow stickers. Does that mean that I get 230V and fan speed-adjustable but not the rest? Or is it the other way around?


Fortunately the actual unit is built suprisingly well. Mirrorish finish, massive 14 cm fan (as promised), the unit feels sturdy and the materials used don't seem el cheapo. Not as mirror like as the Topower, but still good enough to reveal your fingerprints.


Now to check the nominated specifications. 30A on the 12V rail - not bad. In comparison to the Topower, it has 2A extra on the 12V, 5A less on the 5V (45A) and 7A more on the 3.3V rail (35A). Also to note though, is the less amperage on the -12V and -5V (0.8A and 0.5A vs 1.0 and 0.8A on the Topower) - if this makes any difference at all I wouldn't have a clue hahaha....


Something that caused some concern with recent Coolermaster powersupplies was that the cables were tired together outside of the power supply housing. No problems here.

Features
Remember earlier how I mentioned the TORBO function? Well here it is:


The picture is upside down, I know shuttup. There is a button that you can press to change fan speeds, and as a nice touch there are three LEDs that show you what setting you have it on (on the unit there is A, S, T). A for Auto (thanks Maghemi, there must be a temperature sensor), S for Slow/Silent, and T of course is TORBO

In action...

You can see the nice honeycomb back panel in this photo too. Pretty cool. (I know my Paint skillz0r are |337).

In TORBO mode, the fan is noticeably louder than in S and A modes. S is a bit faster than A, but still silent, so I keep it on S (whatever it stands for).


Looks pretty sweet while its running doesn't it

[decayed.cell]

For some reason Super Flower wants to really emphasize the fact that this PSU has two PCI-E power connectors . Notice how these are coloured red, whilst all the other connectors are plain white... (er yeah sorry didn't get around to photographing the actual connectors haha).

So I'll just describe. You get a 24pin connector - UPDATE: the extra 4 pins can be detached, thus becoming a 20pin power supply. You get no fewer than 8 molex conectors, two SATA connectors, two floppy connectors, two PCI-e connectors and one 4 pin secondary connector (ATX12V, thanks SnooP-WiggleS).

Performance and Testing
So how the hell does it perform you may be wondering?


According to my trusty DFI board... 0.06V off on the 3.3V, 0.11V off on the 5V, 0.22V off the 12V, 0.09 off the 5VSB. Well thats better than the Topower at idle I guess (0.15V, 0.24V, 0.27V respectively). Then again it is probably not a very accurate comparison because -weet*di- has a different board .

This is currently powering the system below:

X2 4200+ (Toledo, running at stock because I'm not game enough to hook up the watercooling kit)
DFI Lanparty UT NF4-D
1GB (2x512MB) Corsair TwinX-1024 3200C2 V1.2
Leadtek 7600 GS (Classic Edition, no SLI >.>)
120GB Seagate Baracudda 7200.7 SATA HDD
16x Pioneer DVD-109
52x 32x 52x LG CD-RW
AeroCool GateWatch
2x Coolermaster Aurora 3D Sound Sensitive Cathodes
Evercool Neon Crab Cooler
Arctic Cooling 80mm Pro 2L Fan (set on low)
120mm Coolermaster LED Fan

Now I was going to get the multimeter out, but I er accidently blew it up whilst fiddling around with the dial, whilst it was connected up to the power supply. So no values until then (under load too).

UPDATE:
Voltage measurements using an el cheapo Dick Smith multimeter

Idle
5.5V: 5.12
12V: 12.14

Load (dual CPU Burn-In v1.01)
5.5V: 5.11
12V: 12.10

That would be a difference of 0.03V on the 12V rail between load and idle, and a difference of 0.01V on the 5V rail. Not bad.

Extremely silent? Yes definitely. So silent that I had to set my Arctic Cooling Pro 2L Fan on LOW setting instead of the MED setting (it was just too audible above the PSU). It also has this auto fan speed control feature, when the system is under load the fan will automatically spin itself up - so hey thats pretty cool :P.

Another thing about this PSU is that when the computer starts up it'll fully rev the fan up and slow itself down to silent (I dunno I just felt like putting it in) and slow down. Just gives it a beasty 'feel'?

What about power noise? Well I don't have any special equipment but I thought my sound card could do justice.


New PSU on the left, old on the right. As we can see here there is much less noise on the rails, and thus the soundcard produces better sound.

[Still under construction, I need that multimeter!]

Conclusion
At $89 I'd say that this is a bargain. It has bling, it looks good, seems to perform well, and is silent. The packaging was absolute crap but the main thing is that the actual unit is decent quality.

Pros
-Silent
-Bling
-Clean, tight rails
-Light on the wallet
-Fan speed settings (TORBO for the win)
-SLi native
-Revs up when you start the computer
-Did I mention silent?

Cons
-Not modular
-No fancy connectors (UV reactive etc)

For the moment I'll give it a 9/10, once I get the multimeter and do something overclocking...

[decayed.cell]

Placeholder

[karsa]

nice overview of the powersupply. I purchased a 500w superflower must be coming up to 18 months ago and found it to be a great powersupply for the money. I think i paid $110 from memory and it is still going strong.

[decayed.cell]

Originally Posted by karsa

nice overview of the powersupply. I purchased a 500w superflower must be coming up to 18 months ago and found it to be a great powersupply for the money. I think i paid $110 from memory and it is still going strong.

I actually wasn't finished but lol thanks

[silverbullet]

I have the same psu in aanotehr pc i am giving away cept i have the modular model, very nice psu and btw try a multimetre to get accurate readings not your bios

I used my multimetre on my Superflower and the rails were perfect, even under load. These are also compatible with DFI boards as i tried it out on my Ultra D before putting my Antec 550W in.

[terrastrife]

you guys obviously dont have enough 12v usage =)

ive tried 2 super flower 500w units just to make sure (one was new other borrowed out of a working pc) and neither can run my system at load =)

by load i mean the majority of my hdd's being worked while playing a game...a typical LAN for me =)

and this thing only has 17A on on 12v1.

[decayed.cell]

Originally Posted by terrastrife

you guys obviously dont have enough 12v usage =)

ive tried 2 super flower 500w units just to make sure (one was new other borrowed out of a working pc) and neither can run my system at load =)

by load i mean the majority of my hdd's being worked while playing a game...a typical LAN for me =)

and this thing only has 17A on on 12v1.

Well then you don't have the one that I bought rofl. 30A ftw :P.

[timmay556]

Use a multimeter to test rails, BIOS is useless, mine reads like 12.23 but my rails are bang on 12v

[decayed.cell]

Originally Posted by timmay556

Use a multimeter to test rails, BIOS is useless, mine reads like 12.23 but my rails are bang on 12v

As I said before, mine blew up rofl. Waiting for a new one.

[decayed.cell]

Hey it looks like Super Flower and Topower powersupplies come out of the Enermax factory. Linky

[terrastrife]

Originally Posted by decayed.cell

Hey it looks like Super Flower and Topower powersupplies come out of the Enermax factory. Linky

this has the exact same relevance to that the Xbox360 and PS3 are also made by the same company.

it doesnt mean the quality is the same.

[decayed.cell]

Originally Posted by terrastrife

this has the exact same relevance to that the Xbox360 and PS3 are also made by the same company.

it doesnt mean the quality is the same.

Well it happens in a lot of places. My dad used to work as an accountant for a store that sold shirts. All the shirts came out of the same factory but they were priced differently. Shirts with Brand A on them were sold for 10. Shirts with Brand B on them were sold for 25. And shirts with Brand C on them sold for 50. They were all out of the same factory, all the same quality, just a different brand name on them.

From an economical perspective, its logical, its effective, it works. Look at the chips used by some RAM manufacturers. Sometimes you get the odd BH5 and D43 in 'Value' kits. The chips come out of the same factory, they are probably from the same bins, but they stick a different name on it and they sell for half as less. Is the quality the same?

But yeah I see your point once I get a new multimeter and some overclocking done then we can really see the quality of this PSU.

[dicer]

Happy with my Superflower 500W (older model, no PCIe). Tested with multimeter hardly any fluctuation but then again my system's don't require too much power. Idle/Load 12v line was 12.18-12.22.

[SnooP-WiggleS]

Good work there so far! In particular your idea of using the sound card to test psu is interesting

To answer things you weren't sure about

as far as rails whether they matter: -12V/-5V don't matter -12V is just for serial port (so irrelevent for 99% users), and -5V doesn't even exist on most psu's nowadays. 3.3V/5V rails are handy for old athlonxp/p3 computers, capacity isn't importent for newer computers (10-15A is enough).
as far as what the '4 pin connector' is its the atx12V connector, which powers the cpu on any P4 and onwards motherboard / some athlonxp and all onwards.