SFX Form Factor PSUs

[llee]

I'm currently using a 300 watt power supply for my SFF rig (see signature). It's a stock Silverstone SG-05 PSU that has 80 Plus certifications and an SFX form factor. It has to deal with an i7-860, 2 sticks of ddr3 ram, ssd and 5770.

Now the system has been running stable for about a month now at stock settings and chugs along fine. But I'm worried that catastrophic things will happen if I decide to overclock or stay along this route.

Are there any reputable SFX PSU manufacturers or brands out there? Like the Corsair or Seasonic of SFX form factor power supplies?

 

[Zap]

Seasonic makes a 350W that puts out 26A +12v, but strangely it does not have a PCIe plug. It is good quality, though. I own one.

Silverstone will have a 450W version of unknown +12v amperage, but it is known that it will be 80+ Bronze and will be available in around a month (supposedly earlier this week it was shipped from Asia - on a container ship of course). I got this information from sffclub.com.

 

[frostedflakes]

Well I was going to post that 300-350w is about the max you'll find in an SFX form factor, but I didn't know about that 450w Silverstone. The one in the SG-05 appears to be made by FSP. They're not very well known, but they make decent power supplies.

You can run a surprising amount of hardware on 300w of quality power, though. Even overclocked I doubt your system would use more than 200w or so DC, so the 300w PSU should be adequate.

 

[llee]

Thanks for the pointer. These days it always seems like you need 750watt psus just to play a game.

I'll keep my eyes peeled.

 

[jaydee]

Can you find out what your max draw is currently? You might be in better shape than you think. Are you using the Zotac H55 or the DFI P55 mini-ITX?

I read a review of that PSU, and they were able to draw ~350W out of that power supply. I'll have to try to find it.

 

[llee]

I'm using the DFI P55-T36. It's able to function fluidly at full load (Ci7-860, HD5770, Vertex Pro SSD, Corsair H-50, 2Dimms). I don't really know how to find the power draw though, sorry.

 

[TemjinGold]

Are you considering OCing? If so, just try it. If you don't have enough power, it'll just be unstable, in which case you can back it right down. You're computer isn't going to blow up or anything if you don't have enough juice...

 

[VirtualLarry]

Are you considering OCing? If so, just try it. If you don't have enough power, it'll just be unstable, in which case you can back it right down. You're computer isn't going to blow up or anything if you don't have enough juice...

It could, in a worst-case scenario, cause the PSU to overload and burn out.

 

[TemjinGold]

Considering it runs fine and stable now, I seriously doubt putting on an OC would take it to that extreme unless he was doing some crazy OC with LN2 or something.

 

[Zap]

I think the DFI board would give up the ghost first before the PSU. Recent BIOS updates limit the BCLK while the original BIOS would allow you to overclock until the CPU VRMs burnt up.

BTW, the 450W Silverstone SFX PSU (ST45SF ???) is now available. Amazon is the cheapest at $70 shipped, but is OOS.