It's finally here. Silverstone's Nightjar NJ450-SXL, the completely passive 450 Watt SFX-L power supply has arrived. Silverstone gave SFF Network the first look (and I mean first!) at this unit at Computex 2017, and our community has waited with bated breath since then.
The idea of a passive (or even just a silent) SFX power supply has been on our minds for some time. Somewhat satiated by semi-fanless designs, we nonetheless still desired that final step - completely fanless. In all honesty, I expected the first real foray into fanless SFX(-L) would have been a 300W unit at best, but Silverstone has jumped straight to 450 watts - a perfectly adequate capacity for most of the more powerful SFF systems at present.
Let's see how the first contender in this new market segment sets the bar!
A disclaimer first before we get started: SFF Network does not currently possess the expertise or equipment to fully test the electrical performance of PC power supplies, and as such, this article should not serve as the sole data point in determining whether to purchase this product. We’ll be able to contextualize the utility and experience of using this unit with others in the market place, but we’d suggest having our own review supplement those by others who have the hardware and capability to do more thorough analysis of electrical performance, especially at higher wattages.
Read more here.
Kudos for the detailed disclaimer!
Without proper electrical tests - you end up limited in the most crucial area of PSU performance. You can see how loud it gets and you can measure overall efficiency. You can look at the components used and if the PCB is surface mounted or if its the usual Shenzhen bargain-basement mess.
Exercise extreme caution in buying your PSU, because unstable power can cause no end of intractable computer problems.
Likely, with no spare PSU on hand, users will be sleuthing for software issues first, wasting hours, days or weeks...
Whatever money you save will be lost in hours the first time an issue shows up.
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Silverstone has some great engineers, figuring out small and sensible case layouts.
But any and everything I ever bought with their name on it, was bare minimum quality level. Cases are cleverly designed but cheaply built, to the point of shoddy - and that's their main business...
As far as I know, Silverstone does not build PSUs, you find units that are either re-branded or manufactured for them.
I had one of their 600W SFX PSU's and having trouble with that, got a Corsair 600W and it was like night and day.
I read they did manage to fix the issues after a few attempts. (I don't know if Corsair builds / designs their own PSU's, but I saw a full electrical performance write-up before buying it - something I had omitted for the Silverstone, because they were literally the first company that had a 600W SFX-L PSU.
I'm not saying that's directly comparable in any way to the unit you're reviewing here.
My point is: I wouldn't buy a PSU that doesn't come from only the very few most highly regarded, dedicated PSU builders. And even if you buy the likes of Seasonic, you still want to see full measurements and knowledgeable interpretation there-off, before you place your order, because the models differ - some are better than others and its not as simple as buying the most expensive one...
Buying a main-board is far simpler to do, there's only ASRock, Gigabyte, Asus, MSI, EVGA and you just have to pick the features you want. Except for rare engineering errors, there's near zero chance that you'll get a poorly made, low quality board.
There's no other PC component, where quality can range down as low as with PSUs.
