Silver Power SP-SS500 500W PSU Review

Most people have a wrong idea about how much power does a modern PC require. There are models marked as 100-150W for the needs of ultra-small nettop computers capable of connecting you to the global net or playing music and movies and there are up to ten times more powerful ones with multiple 12V lines for hundreds of dollars for the computer enthusiasts. The class of PSU recommended for most systems of mid-high class is around 500W, so for this review we choose an interesting 500W one - Silver Power SP-SS500 500W and decided to test it with high class gaming computer using dual-core HD4870X2 2GB video card and quad-cored processor in order to find out how will it fare and will its voltages remain stable.

Probably for most, if not for all of you Silver Power is a new name. They are affiliate of MaxPoint, which happen to be colossus in the PSU industry (owning few more well known brands). The best known of them is Tagan - PSU's for computer enthusiasts and gamers and Seasonic - top-class PSU's famous for their efficiency and quietness. Etasis specialize in server PSU's (Stil under MaxPoint leadership) and finally - Silver Power, represent the latest brand with wide array of powerful PSU's that have well balanced capabilities and optimal price.

Manu thanks to Dekada for supplying us with Silver Power SP-SS500 500W for this review.

Silver Power SP-SS500 has the following characteristics:

• 500W Max power, 2x 12V lines, each of up to 17A
• Compatible with Intel ATX 12 V Ver. 2.2
• 80 Plus certified, high efficiency
• Environmental friendly “Super Low Noise” fan control
• Excellent thermal management with high quality ball bearing 12 cm fan
• Active Power Factor Correction with high PF value of >0.98
• Low power consumption in stand-by mode, meets Energy Star 4.0 requirements
• 2× built-in PCI Express graphics card connectors, 1× 6 Pin & 1× 6+2 Pin
• 6× serial ATA hard disk connectors for your SATA drives
• Stable output voltages under any load condition
• Protection against over voltage, over power and short circuit
• 24 months warranty

These specifications were taken from the MaxPoint website. Everything looks impressive on paper, time to find if that's true. But first we'll take a closer look at it.