Silverstone SST-ST45SF 450W SFX Power Supply Written Review

A 450 watt SFX power supply? Yes they are rare, in fact there is only a few on the market and the only ones worth buying are from Silverstone.

Here's the spec:

Form Factor:
Max Output:
Efficiency Rating:
PFC:
Combined +3V & +5V:
Combined +12V:
Protections:


MTBF:
Cooling:
Weight:

SFX
450W
80 Plus Bronze
Active PFC
120W
432W (36A)
Over current protection, Over power protection,
Over voltage protection, Under voltage protection,
Short circuit protection
100,000 Hours (25°C at Full Load)
80mm fan
1.0KG

20/24 Pin Connector:
8 Pin EPS 12V Connector:
6 Pin PCIe Connector:
6+2 Pin PCIe Connector:
Sata Power Connector:
4 Pin Molex Connector:
FDD Connector:

1
1
1
1
3
2
1

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Design:

At 450 Watts the Silverstone SST-ST45SF is one of the highest outputting SFX power supplies on the market along with its modular Gold rated counterpart. If this is not enough to sell the design to you, it also features a fully black casing which we only see a few companies do as the SFX market is extremely small (Oh the irony).

On the back we find a honeycomb mesh design along with the power plug and a power switch!
It's nice to see the power switch being that many companies including Silverstone went through a phase of not including switches on their power supplies but we really do prefer having them. The sides of the power supplies are plain black for the most part with there being a few air holes on one side.

On the top we have a centred 80mm fan providing all the cooling for this power supply and for some situations will give a little extra cooling performance to the CPU cooler depending on your case layout. The looks are nothing suer special here, just a punched grill in the metal. You would normally see this in more budget orientated products but I like it, it give the power supply a nice clean look with a hint of raw 'power' to it that I think a fancy design wouldn't achieve.

Turning it over and we find all the annoying but essential stickery goodness covering all the wattages and amp information as well as serial codes and whatnot. Here is also where the 'Void if removed' sticker is in case you want to open it up and void your warranty.

Coming out of the unit we have 5 different cables, all hosting different types of connections. The obvious 3 are your 24 pin, 4+4 pin and your PCIe connectors which on this unit are a single cable with both a 6 and a 6+2 pin connectors. this leaves 2 cables left which are on one your Sata power and on the other your Molex and FDD cables.

The lengths for the cables and the distances between connections are:

Cable 1:
Cable 2:
Cable 3:
Cable 4:
Cable 5:

24 pin Motherboard
4+4 pin Processor
6+2 pin, 6 pin PCIe
2 Molex, 1 FDD
3 Sata Power

300mm
400mm
400mm, +150mm
300mm, +200mm, +200mm
300mm, +220mm, +100mm

For an ITX/SFF case I think these lengths are pretty much  perfect but for anything bigger such as if you were to use the ATX adaptor plate, you won't have much leeway for cable management. I would also maybe have preferred it coming with 3 Molex and a Molex to FDD adaptor rather than it coming already attached.

All the cables are sleeved as you can see in the pictures however not only is the weave incredibly thin and almost completely transparent  but it also only covers to the first connection and on the 24 pin about half the cable length. From an aesthetic point of view they might as well not have bothered but I don't believe that is it's function here. I believe that in the scenario in which this power supply

is to be used, cable management is a MUST and as I am sure most readers know, an un sleeved cable is nothing short of a nightmare to work with. In this case I feel we are dealing with more of a functional addition by unifying the cables rather than to make them look better. This being said I am not excusing the use of a worse cable sleeving, I just don't see it as a big deal in SFF cases because very few actually have windows so you can see inside and if you could, they would be so cramped anyway it wouldn't look good.

A final and very important (personally) finish to the design section is the Molex connectors are some of if not THE highest quality connectors I have seen in a long long time. Molex connections have never been good and the design is while robust, quite frankly terrible. You will very easily come across terrible Molex connectors where pins don't line up well even from reputable manufacturers but I had absolutely no issue with these ones from Silverstone. The whole feel was superior to others.

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Performance:

Unfortunately we don't have the equipment to fully test his power supply and cover things like ripple so rather than attempt to give you a performance review we have opted to keep our dignity and not ruin our reputation by reviewing this power supply incorrectly.

Oscilloscopes and the like are very expensive so I will just go as far as saying this power supply even with just an 80mm fan does not get loud and stays quite, perfect for those who want to build a nice quiet home theatre or desktop pc.

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Conclusion:

Silverstone essentially own the SFF and SFX market with products like these. At 450 Watts the ST45SF is one of only a few SFX power supplies on the market really capable of handling a somewhat powerful system and while it isn't modular like its bigger brother, it is in my opinion the best value SFX PSU on the market that is actually worth getting.

Whether you want to build a tiny system or you want to use it with the included bracket for extra CPU cooler room like in the Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced, this product will have everything you need to get up and running.

To sum it up, you get one of the best looking SFX power supplies with the highest wattage currently available and you get it at a price point that makes small form factor systems no more expensive than their standard sized counterparts. There is room for improvement obviously but this will most probably happen as the SFF market expands and becomes more popular.

Out of choice I have decided not to rate this prodact due to not being able to test it full but it has received our EDITORS CHOICE nonetheless for obvious reasons.