Overall and Temperature Testing
So like I mentioned earlier, we don’t have the equipment on hand for full power supply testing so I don’t provide a pro’s and cons or awards on power supplies because it wouldn’t be fair to do that without fully testing them. With the NJ450-SXL I did, however, do some testing because I was very curious how the thermals work out. To do this I used AIDA64 to load up our test benches CPU and GPU. With the Kill-A-Watt pulling 382 watts I left it running for an hour and a half just to see how it would handle a relatively high load over an extended amount of time. After that, I took a few thermal images and frankly I was surprised that the NJ450-SXL didn’t get warmer than it did, especially with no direct airflow. Our CPU and GPU were running significantly higher. At its hottest, it was averaging 113.9F with 124.9F being the hottest spot I could find. The hot spot was at the end of the PSU where there wasn’t a heatsink. Thermal images showed that the extrusions did a good job of spreading the heat out as well with only one area on one side having a small spot warmer than the rest. The top (in the pictures below) was noticeably cooler as well with its thicker heatsinks.
So the NJ450-SXL is a very unique design with this being the only fanless SFX on the market so there isn’t much to be able to compare it too. Even beyond that, there is only one other 450 watt PSU that is 80 PLUS Platinum and that is the Corsair SF450. The price difference between the two is big with the NJ-450-SXL selling for $209 and the SF450 $115. Does that make the NJ450 a bad price? Well if you were only worried about the price going with the fanless SFX PSU isn’t really the most cost-effective purchase. But with SFX builds being used in living rooms or in small builds sitting right up on your desk noise can be a big concern and dropping the fan altogether is a good step in that direction. Keeping the CPU and GPU running cool and quiet are going to be a much bigger issue though in those builds. I think for most people a lot of the SFX PSUs, especially the SFX-L models with larger and quieter fans will be happy, but I love that Silverstone continues to innovate and bring out options in this form factor. The 450 wattage on this one is a nice bonus because most single GPU builds should be able to run on that, in fact, our thermal testing was done with a 9900K and GTX1080.
Live Pricing: HERE
