Cleaned up the cables inside the SG13 case

Now that I have cancelled the order for the Silverstone SX500-LG PSU, I thought of tidying up the cables of my current PSU to make room for the air to flow without obstruction from the front intake fan.

 

The PSU that I currently use is also from Silverstone, but it is an ATX PSU which has cables that are long enough to approach the components when installed in a larger case. It is impossible to find an ATX PSU with short cables for that reason, but compared to the other brands, the cables that come with this PSU are a tad shorter. However there are some stupid design decisions that have been made by Silverstone such as having only one connector on each PCI-E cable. So, not only the cables are too long for the SG13 case, I have to use more cables than necessary.

 

But I wanted to see what I could do about that cable mess. As far as I know, things would not get any worse than this as the PSU that I plan to buy a will have shorter cables.

 

This is what I was able to achieve.

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.

Which PSU to get for the Silverstone SG13?

Silverstone SG 13 case which I recently moved my whole PC into, does indeed support ATX power supply units (PSUs). In fact I currently have an ATX power supply in it. The one that I use is one of the smallest ATX PSUs out there. Being only 140mm long, it should fit just fine in the SG13 as per specifications posted by Silverstone. But in reality, that is not the case.

The following is a photograph of the current state of my PC.

There is hardly any room for the air to circulate inside the case. That is without even the 3.5” bay installed. (I simply place the HDD on the top of the cables, but the HDD will be removed from the PC soon) The lack of space is mostly due to the long cables this power supply comes bundled with. Since it is an ATX PSU, ideally it should go inside a larger case and the cables need to be long enough to reach the components. Inside the SG13, those cables are way too long.

What can I do about the cables?

I can of course spend some time and do a proper cable management job. I didn’t have to do that with previous cases but skipping that in this case is inexcusable.

There is another option too. I can buy the PP05-E short cable kit sold separately by Silverstone. Those cables should fit my PSU just fine because they are compatible with every modular PSU sold by Silverstone. Sadly, they don’t come cheap. JPY 3,000 is a steep price to pay for a set of cables.

How about more room?

But what if I make PSU smaller as well? Wait a second now. Didn’t I tell that the PSU that I use is amongst the smallest ATX PSU’s available in the present market? Yes, I said ATX. You do not have to restrict yourself to ATX PSUs though. There are other form factors that with much smaller foot prints. Two of such popular form factors are SFX and SFX-L form factors.

[Rant] If only Silverstone made the Sugo SG09 look nicer!

Let’s forget about the motherboard form factor for a minute. What I really need in the end is a PC housed in a small chassis. It doesn’t really matter if the motherboard is an ATX one as long as the volume and the weight of the PC is small.

The obvious choice is a mini-ITX chassis. But there are some micro-ATX cases that fit the occasion as well. The Sugo line of cases from Silverstone is a prime example. Especially the two higher-end models - the SG09 and the SG10. They are quite unique in their internal organization like many of the mini-ITX cases. They kind of follow the design philosophies of the Raven RV03 that I currently own and am quite eager to get rid of because of the overwhelming size of it. Except for the 90 degrees rotated motherboard tray and the actual direction of the movement of air, the design decisions applied to the Sugo SG09/SG10 and Raven RV03 are pretty similar. Power supply in the front, storage area behind the motherboard tray and targeted at air cooling with a lot of positive pressure using the "air penetrator" fans.