Photos and Features
The fan side of the V SFX Platinum is as you would expect is almost completely filled with the 92 mm Hong Hua fan with a model number of HA9215SH12FD-F00. This is as large of a fan as you can fit in the SFX form factor and Cooler Master has that covered with an old school wire fan cover, only the cover doesn’t have the normal round ring shape, each ring is squared off with 45-degree corners. The fan and cover are mounted to the housing with the four black screws on the corners and the lower profile 15mm thick fan is rated at a max speed of 2800 RPM, with the amount of wattage the V SFX Platinum is capable of they have to have the cooling capacity to keep things running cool. It has a fluid dynamic bearing and going back to the fan curve graph on the box we know that they don’t have the fan turning off at low wattage, it starts at 1500 RPM, and then at 30% wattage usage it slowly starts to ramp up only getting above 2000 RPM when going beyond 80% of the rated output.
If this were an ATX form factor power supply the 1100-watt capacity would be nice but not a game changer at all. But the Cooler Master V SFX Platinum is an SFX power supply, I would put a small asterisk on that, however. For reference there are two different SFX form factors and the two share the same height and width which is a width of 125 mm and a height of 63.5, it is the length where you will find the difference between the SFX and SFX-L sizes. A normal SFX power supply is easy to spot because they are rectangular whereas SFX-L is normally as long as it is wide. The V SFX Platinum does have that rectangular shape and officially Cooler Master has the length measured at 100 mm which is the SFX standard length but as you can see in the pictures below they are measuring the housing and ignoring the plugs that stick out. This was a slick move to keep it in the compact form factor but in some cases it could still cause fitment issues. The plugs stick out 8 mm past the housing which makes the V SFX Platinum 108 mm long for my measurements. Still a lot shorter than an SFX-L at least.
Opposite of the fan side of the V SFX Platinum the power supply has a solid panel with a large black sticker that covers most of the panel. The sticker has a texture to it to try to match the texture on the black powder coat finish on the V SFX Platinum and it works but the color ends up a little darker which is why it is visible at all. The sticker has the wattage featured up top and a table showing the wattage breakdown by voltage. It of course has all of the certification logos including an 80 Plus Platinum logo that specifically mentions the rating being for 115V use. It is listed on the 80Plus website and HERE is a link if you want to check out the test results. It is on the low end of platinum efficiency on the lower end of the graph and ramps up to being titanium efficiency range at 100% capacity. This side also has a white sticker that has the serial number on it and a small icon that represents the warranty which is a 10-year warranty and given how long Cooler Master has been around that is a warranty that I would trust.
The back of the V SFX Platinum does have 2/3 of the back covered in small hexagon-shaped holes which also give a peak inside the V SFX Platinum. Then to the right is the C14 power plug. There is a Cooler Master logo below that but I was also surprised to see there isn’t a power switch at all here on the back.
Given how much Cooler Master is packing into the small SFX form factor to reach the 1100-watt capacity on this model and the 1300-watt model as well I was surprised that the sides of the housing have anything special going on. They have a C shape stamped into the most visible side which would be the one that faces out when you have the fan facing down. They have the Cooler Master logo and the V1100 model name also printed in a grey on the dark grey to black textured finish. The opposite side on the other hand has nothing at all on it, it is completely blank. Both sides do show that the bottom panel looks to have a slightly darker powder coat finish than the rest of the housing which is interesting.
I mentioned it already but having the modular cables sticking out as much as they are was a surprise when I opened things up. This is an area a lot of power supplies have been pushing their luck having them stick out more and more trying to pack in the highest wattage into the smallest cases as possible but this is about as far as it is possible with the PCB they are attached to at the back right up against the housing and even visible in between the plugs. The case does have legends for each of the plugs printed on the housing along with lines on each side showing each plug under that same legend. The 12VHWPR plug is up in the top left corner and should be easy to spot, it has a much tighter pin layout than the rest. From there the rest of that top row are all 8-pin connections which can work with the PCIe cables or the two CPU power cables with 5 plugs in total. On the bottom level, the two left plugs are both for the 24-pin motherboard power with one 18-pin and one 10-pin. Then there are three 6-pin plugs which are all peripheral power cables for the SATA and Molex cables.
In addition to being inside of the nylon storage bag, all of the cables for the V SFX Platinum 1100W also come packed in a plastic bag as well. Everything other than the power cable that is. For that, you get a standard C13 to NEMA5-15 cable. For cables, the V SFX Platinum 1100W comes with 10 modular cables plus the power cable.
Being an SFX power supply Cooler Master has gone with shorter cables for the V SFX Platinum 1100W. Without shorter cables, in any SFX-compatible case, you are going to be fighting trying to hide all of the extra cable length. The 24-pin is the biggest example of this coming in at just past 13 inches long. It does have the compact flat cables and they are all black and the PSU end of the cable has two plugs in total with one 18-pin and one 10-pin connection. In that same picture, we have two 8-pin CPU power cables which are longer with them needing to reach up to the top edge of your motherboard but they are just 19 inches in total length each and both are that same length. Of the 10 cables for the V SFX Platinum 1100W, three of them are peripheral power cables with two SATA power cables and one Molex. The two SATA power cables are the same 23-inch total length and the Molex cable is shorter at 19 inches. Surprisingly the Molex cable has four connections with the first at 5 inches, the second at 10 inches, 3rd at 14 inches, and the last at the end of the 19-inch cable. The two SATA power cables are similar with four plugs but being a little longer they have more space between with the plugs at 5, 11, 16, and 23 inches. I would love to see one of the cables have both Molex and SATA power, I know in a lot of my builds I end up needing just one of each, combo cables help cut out one full cable in those situations. The last four cables for the V SFX Platinum 1100W are then all for VGA connections. All four are 17 inches long and three of the cables are PCIe power cables with the 6+8-pin combo connection on the end, surprisingly Cooler Master did skip out on having any of the dual connection cables which are convenient but not the best for power delivery. Then the last cable is a single 12VHPWR cable which is the new form factor. That is the only cable of the 10 that isn’t the flat cable style, it comes sleeved in black sleeving still. The 12VHPWR is also unique in that one end has a right-angled connection which below I take a closer look at.
I did of course get a closer look at the new right-angled 12VHWPR connection, beyond the crazy wattage in such a small form factor this is the cooler feature of the V SFX Platinum 1100W. It is available on at least one ATX form factor Cooler Master model as well. It has a plastic cover over top of the plug, this is what is doing all of the work. The wires aren’t going in from the side, they do still bend but with the plug covering everything it gives the connection the support needed to not get moved around while staying in that right-angled form. The clip is on the outside and the sense connections are on the inside of the angle.
How well the right-angled connection works is going to depend entirely on what video card you end up using. Obviously, if you are using a card with older larger PCIe plugs none of this is a concern. But Nvidia cards with the new connection vary a lot. For all of the Founders Edition cards the plug is always up on top and even with the rest of the card and for those cards, this should work well. For aftermarket cards, a lot of those designs have a recessed connection like you can see here. These will work fine as long as the right angle is going in the correct direction, but you are going to see a few cards where it will want to turn right into the heatsink. Sadly the V SFX Platinum 1100W doesn’t come with a normal straight cable as well but worse case you should be able to flip the cable around and use the right angle on the PSU end as long as your case has room. So there are a few things to keep in mind there.
