Photos and Features
So with the Silverstone SFX options they started a long time ago with a Bronze rated 450 Watt PSU in both a modular and non-modular setup. That eventually moved to a 600W option as well as a new 450W both Gold rated. Corsair has done the same only they skipped the lower 80 Plus rated options and their first SFX power supplies are both 80 Plus Gold. They have a 450-watt option as well as the 600 Watt and both are fully modular. Today I will be taking a look at the 600 Watt model.
The SFX form factor can be a little bit surprising to anyone used to a full ATX power supply, especially when you consider how much power they output in such a small space. For reference a full sized ATX power supply is going to be about 150mm x 150mm x 86mm and that is for the smallest models, larger wattage models get much longer. The SF600 on the other hand is 125mm x 63mm x 100mm, smaller in every dimension. This is the same size as the Silverstone options, so you can use the SF600 in all of the Silverstone cases that require SFX.
What caught my eye right away was the drastically different cooling fan on the SF600, it takes up a much larger area on the power supply than other SFX power supplies and the fan opening uses a normal style grill rather than just cutouts in the sheet metal. When you first get the SF600 is also comes with a sticker warning you that the fan actually doesn’t turn on during low to moderate loads. This is important to know because I’ve had a few people freak out when their video cards fans didn’t power up. The fan inside is low profile 92mm fan that is grey in color. Being 92mm is an improvement for SFX but I’m not surprised that Corsair wanted to keep it off for lower wattage usage as it’s still not big enough to be able to push a lot of air without having to run at a decently high RPM. Thankfully given the fan doesn’t even need to come on a lot the fan shouldn’t have to run too fast.
To get all of that air out the back of the SF600 is perforated with honeycomb shaped holes. While small the SF600 does still manage to keep a small power switch on the back as well as the standard three prong power plug. Corsair also slipped a small tag with the model name on here as well because they know that in a lot of the SFF cases this power supply is going to be buried into a tiny space.
That didn’t stop them from putting a standard Corsair logo with the SF600 name on the side of the power supply though.
On the other side they packed all of the required stuff onto one sticker. Here we have all of the regulatory certifications and logos. They also have a barcode for the serial number should you need to RMA it and above that they also include the model name and a breakdown of the power load per cable.
The overall finish on the SF600 is a textured black powder coat where the Silverstone PSUs have a glossy finish. The textured finish looks great, especially on the top where Corsair has embossed their logo as well as bent lines for a little style.
The last part of the SF600 is of course where all of its modular cables hook up. Here we can see that like Corsairs larger power supplies the 24 pin power for the motherboard is split up into two connections. Everything is labeled clearly with there being two connections for peripheral/SATA connections and then three for PCI and the CPU.
For cables the SF600 has six different cables. The 24 pin motherboard power and the 4+4 8 pin CPU power cables are a given and even so Corsair didn’t hard wire them leaving the possibility of using longer or shorter cables if needed. Really the included cables should be short enough though, the 24 pin measures 13 inches long. Like I mentioned before the 24 pin uses two different connections at the PSU to split things up. The cable itself consists of four different ribbons of the thin and flexible cables that most higher quality power supplies use. The other cables use the same cable as well. The PCI Express cables both have 6 + 2 connection ends on them depending on if your video card needs an 8 or a 6 pin connection. All in all, you get everything you will need for any single video card build really. You have enough for up to 4 SATA devices and three Molex in addition to the cables for the CPU, Motherboard, and video card. This is exactly the same as the Silverstone 600 watt SFX PSU as well.
