Finally did the PSU upgrade: Silverstone SX500-LG

 

I was delaying purchasing of the new PSU  until I could find it at a reasonable price and until I piled up enough Rakuten points. By 15th of this month, I had a total of 3700 points and sadly about 1500 points were to become expired at the end of the month. So I had to buy something else with that points or buy the PSU now.

 

I was going to buy either the Silverstone SX500-LG or the Sharkoon SilentStorm SFX Gold 500W model. I was leaning towards the latter because it was

• cheaper (much cheaper on Rakuten, like JPY2,500 compared to the Silverstone),
• had more connectors on the SATA power cable (4 vs. 3) and
• had a fan that was always running (compared to semi-silent one on the Silverstone).

But the Silverstone one

• had all Japanese caps,
• had shorter power cables and
• was from a well-known manufacturer (not OEM, mind you) in the field of PSUs.

 

But I decided to wait a bit longer to see if the Silverstone unit would drop in price. I could wait till the end of the month anyways. One day I noticed that there was a new listing for less than JPY14,000 on Rakuten, by a shop called EC-JOY!. Still it was almost a thousand bucks pricier than the Sharkoon unit, but I would trade that amount for peace of mind. (I’ve been burned several times for cheeping out on stuff.) So I decided to go for the Silverstone. I have seen EC-JPY!’s listings on Kakaku.com but I had never bought anything from them.

 

It was mentioned that the delivery charges weren't included in the price but it turned out to be free after all. I ordered it on Thursday the 17th and it arrived on Saturday the 19th. It could have taken longer because of the holidays. (This is the Silver Week in Japan.) It was no one day delivery like Amazon Prime, but I’ve purchases from Rakuten take more than a week.

 

Cancelled the order for the SX500-LG

COVERSPOT, the shop I ordered the SX500-LG power supply unit for my SG13 build from was delaying the order far too long that I finally gave up and asked them to cancel my order. I had to contact (email) them and get it done because for some reason it was not possible to cancel the order from the purchase history section of my Rakuten account. Usually a button to cancel the order would appear there. It said if the button doesn't appear, we have to contact the shop.

But there is one problem. They had it for the cheapest and the next shop is selling it for about JPY 500 more. I won't pay that much for it. The cheapest price was already too expensive.

There is another player in the market, Sharkoon, who makes a SFX-L unit called Silent Storm SFX Gold with exact same specs and layout as the Silverstone SX500-LG unit, which is slightly cheaper and readily available however their choice of capacitors is a bit worrying. Sharkoon is using arguably less quality Teapo branded Korean capacitors for the primary and secondary side capacitors of the PSU. They are using a Japanese capacitor for the standby capacitor though. Silverstone, at least with the revision 1.1, is using Japanese capacitors across the board.

Everyone these days is asking for Japanese capacitors and the enthusiasts seem to reject anything that doesn't have them. But it reality, they could be overestimating the effects of having non-Japanese capacitors with regards to home computers that doesn't run at full load 24/7. JonnyGuru, a reputed PSU reviewer replied to my thread on his forums saying Teapo is fine.

Chose the SX500-LG PSU for the SG13 build and ordered it

I was planning to get a new PSU for my SG13 build to lower the weight, increase the breathing room for components and improve the airflow by reducing the cable clutter. I was trapped between two PSUs, the SX500-LG and the SX600-G, both from Silverstone. The former is a SFX-L unit and the latter is a SFX unit.

SFX or SFX-L?

Between the two, I chose the SFX-L unit because of its 120mm fan and the slightly cheaper price tag. The SX600-G comes with a 80mm fan and should be noisier and wouldn't be adequate for exhausting warm air inside the case. I'm not convinced the SX500-LG is either but it should be better in that regard.

New options unearthed

However, there was another brand as I found out, which was cheaper and probably better for airflow. It's the Scythe SPKRG-S500P. It appears to have the same OEM as the Silverstone SFX-L unit although there aren't any reviews of it. It would be about JPY4,000 cheaper which is significant and comes with meshed modular cables. Those cables aren't as pretty as the flat cables offered by Silverstone, however when it comes to the 24pin cable, meshed cable overs less of the airflow and that could be noticeable inside the SG13.