SuperFlower Golden Silent 500w Power Supply Overview

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Conclusion

Superflower are an interesting company on the whole, don’t you agree?  Relatively unheard of in the mainstream until the last year or so; especially in the UK.  How has one company made such an impact that PSU experts around the world have been raving hard about these power supplies?  The answer, Superflower are the mustard, the dogs danglies and more importantly, AFFORDABLE.  The last one might not be the case today, but I intend to give the lowdown on my experience with the Golden Silent 500w which has certainly been an eye opener for me personally.  What’s the line on the grapevine? Let’s do this…

Performance wise, if you have read any Superflower power supply review/overview over the last 12 months, you will understand what I mean when I say “simply amazing”.  I haven’t seen a brand make such an impact in their designated field since…well anyone!  I think the fact I put a full 520w load on this 500w unit and it just sat there smiling away, all silent, is a true testament to Superflower as an OEM and more recently a popular brand.  With a solid showing in our testing on each of the 3 rails (3.3v, 5v and 12v), it’s easy to see why people are starting to switch from other brands to Superflower.

Another huge focal point of the Golden Silent 500w is the passive cooled design, this works very well and is inaudible to my ears.  I did half expect this unit to give at least some noise in the form of electrical hiss after putting more than the recommended load on the unit but it behaved itself and easily deserves our silent award.  Please note this particular power supply does need to go inside a case which has at least some form of decent airflow as that is how it remains cooled; pretty obvious in all regards due to the large heat sink on the top panel.  Overall in terms of design, it isn’t the nicest looking unit in the world but it does come with plenty of connections as well as the ability to be able to SLI or CF graphics cards; I wouldn’t go Crossfiring 290x’s though as this unit is clearly not designed for such high loads.

Price wise, it isn’t the most affordable of power supplies on the market.  Coming in at a staggering £99.99 from Overclockers UK, that equates to around £20 for every 100w watts of power which is far from “value” but you have to look at a unit like this differently than a regular power supply; the key factor here is the passive design.  Sure a normal fan cooled power supply will be a lot cheaper but silent PSUs have their purpose and are perfect for audio editing rigs, home theatre PC’s and if you want a silent running system, any ATX case will support this unit.

Overall if you are looking for a superbly built silent operating power supply and 500w of power is enough for you, then this is the only unit in my eyes which you should be looking at.  With the ability to handle up to 550w of power without breaking a sweat, it is certainly a pocket rocket and if you were brave enough, a pair of SLI GTX 970’s would actually be a possibility with Maxwell’s great efficiency and lower TDP operating limits.  Some might argue that the price is too damn high but you get what you pay for here, you aren’t getting anything but the best so I’ll leave that one up to you!

Huge thanks to Overclockers UK and Superflower for sending the Golden Silent 500w power supply in for us to have a look at and I look forward to more in the future.