Power Supply SilverStone SX700-LPT - 700W SFX-L Platinum-rated

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Feb 22, 2015
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This review has been a long time in the making.

The SilverStone 700W SFX-L power supply - that later came to be designated the SX700-LPT - was first shown off ahead of the last Computex on May 27th, 2015, almost exactly a year ago. Since then, the PSU has made appearances at various industry conferences and events, as if to tease us. But now, the time has finally come, and the SX700-LPT is here!

Read more here.
 

tylerrobb

Cable Smoosher
May 19, 2016
11
5
Great review! This honestly helped me make up my mind. I was JUST about to spring for the Lian Li, but it looks like Silverstone will be the smarter choice for my build. It's a shame that the Lian Li is up for sale while this Silverstone isn't. I was hoping to build early next week.
 

PlayfulPhoenix

Founder of SFF.N
SFFLAB
Chimera Industries
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Feb 22, 2015
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Great review! This honestly helped me make up my mind. I was JUST about to spring for the Lian Li, but it looks like Silverstone will be the smarter choice for my build. It's a shame that the Lian Li is up for sale while this Silverstone isn't. I was hoping to build early next week.

We'll have the review for Lian Li's unit up pretty soon, so I'd encourage you to take a peek at that one as well when deciding which one to go with :)
 

Phuncz

Lord of the Boards
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May 9, 2015
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Wow very nice review, well done Aiboh ! I really liked the fan characteristics and fan controller parts you wrote, very well done !
I'll be needing this kind of PSU power if I'm going to be dual-wielding R9 290X cards in the Cerberus, this seems to be the PSU for the job !
 

Qrash

Cable-Tie Ninja
Aug 10, 2015
198
152
Such a range in warranty periods: Corsair = 7 years, Silverstone = 3 years, and Lian Li = 1 year. I think Lian Li really needs to increase this to be more inline with other power supply vendors.
 

tylerrobb

Cable Smoosher
May 19, 2016
11
5
I just got off the phone with SilverStone and I was told that their first shipment of the SX700-LPT power supplies are currently in US customs. They're expecting them to arrive and be available online in the next day or two.

I asked which preferred US online retailer would carry the SX700-LPT and was told Newegg.
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Feb 22, 2015
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That's good to know. I wonder if Newegg takes delivery directly from China or it gets routed through SilverStone's NA office first.
 

Sergey

Efficiency Noob
May 26, 2016
5
0
Wow very nice review, well done Aiboh ! I really liked the fan characteristics and fan controller parts you wrote, very well done !
I'll be needing this kind of PSU power if I'm going to be dual-wielding R9 290X cards in the Cerberus, this seems to be the PSU for the job !
Can u please make ref to review?
 

Sergey

Efficiency Noob
May 26, 2016
5
0
We'll have the review for Lian Li's unit up pretty soon, so I'd encourage you to take a peek at that one as well when deciding which one to go with :)
What I really interesting in and only worry about - noise level in Lian's-Li pe-750. They silent about this param on their website. Why? Silverstone wrote down it.
I already built sff case based on silvertone's ML08 (with sx600 - gold psu) with gtx980 ti. And noise - major concern factor now. Heat of course too. But noise with gtx on full power really disturbing. PSU noise, not gtx. That's why noise level - my major BIG question to Lian-Li.
 

PlayfulPhoenix

Founder of SFF.N
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Feb 22, 2015
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What I really interesting in and only worry about - noise level in Lian's-Li pe-750. They silent about this param on their website. Why? Silverstone wrote down it.

I'd bear in mind that Lian Li has never made or sold power supplies before. It could well be that they don't mention noise because it isn't particularly quiet, but I'd personally find it equally likely that they're just be so new to the market that they didn't think to mention it in their marketing.

It's probably safe to say they didn't exactly tune the unit for silence, but given the wattage, that's kinda self evident :p
 

Hermit2001

Trash Compacter
Apr 26, 2016
43
31
I'd bear in mind that Lian Li has never made or sold power supplies before. It could well be that they don't mention noise because it isn't particularly quiet, but I'd personally find it equally likely that they're just be so new to the market that they didn't think to mention it in their marketing.

It's probably safe to say they didn't exactly tune the unit for silence, but given the wattage, that's kinda self evident :p
I'm certainly looking forward to your PE-750 review, will that be out shortly?
You made no reference in your SX700-LPT review of its max wattage (750W peak), have you since pushed it to see how far it will go?
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Original poster
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Feb 22, 2015
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I'm certainly looking forward to your PE-750 review, will that be out shortly?

The testing is done but the SX700-LPT took much longer than I thought to finish because I forgot how much I suck at writing. So hopefully soon but no promises.

You made no reference in your SX700-LPT review of its max wattage (750W peak), have you since pushed it to see how far it will go?

My setup only draws about 500W. I'd like to upgrade to SLI GTX 1080 Ti's or better yet, get proper load testers, but that's not in the budget for the foreseeable future.
 

tylerrobb

Cable Smoosher
May 19, 2016
11
5
The testing is done but the SX700-LPT took much longer than I thought to finish because I forgot how much I suck at writing. So hopefully soon but no promises.

Does SFF.net need volunteer editors/proofreaders? I'd be more than happy to help contribute if there's a need for that. In the past, I've written guest articles and done some editing for Android Headlines (http://www.androidheadlines.com/author/tyler-robb)
 

Phuncz

Lord of the Boards
SFFn Staff
May 9, 2015
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The testing is done but the SX700-LPT took much longer than I thought to finish because I forgot how much I suck at writing. So hopefully soon but no promises.
You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, I thought your writing on the SX700-LPT was very very good.

My setup only draws about 500W. I'd like to upgrade to SLI GTX 1080 Ti's or better yet, get proper load testers, but that's not in the budget for the foreseeable future.
I've got a pair of 290X's that'll bring that high-flying PSU back down to earth XD
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Original poster
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Feb 22, 2015
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Does SFF.net need volunteer editors/proofreaders?

We're pretty good for editors. Really we need more writers, in particular news writers.

You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, I thought your writing on the SX700-LPT was very very good.

The quality isn't terrible, but I'm very slow at writing. That, and being terrible at time management means writing up these reviews always takes longer than I expect :p
 
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spuds

Minimal Tinkerer
May 28, 2016
3
0
Planning my first desktop build and I have a couple of questions regarding power connections to the Asus X99-M WS motherboard (sorry if the answer is obvious, first-time builder and just trying to figure out as much as possible to make sure I buy compatible parts - both this PSU and MB are items I've been looking at). I understand the 24 pin connection is no problem, but the others I am foggy on...

Motherboard specs:
2 x 8-pin EATX 12 V Power connector
1 x 6-pin EATX 12 V_1 Power connector
1 x 24-pin EATX Power connector
1 x 8-pin ATX 12V Power connector

PSU specs:
2x 6+2-pin PCIe (500mm / 150mm)
2x 6+2-pin PCIe (400mm / 150mm)
4+4-pin CPU (400mm)
24-pin motherboard (300mm)
3x 4-pin Molex (300mm / 200mm / 200mm)
3x SATA (600mm / 100mm / 100mm)
3x SATA (300mm / 200mm / 100mm)
3x SATA (300mm / 200mm / 100mm)
1x Floppy adapter (100mm)
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Feb 22, 2015
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Welcome!

TL;DR The Asus X99-M WS works fine with just the 24-pin and a single 8-pin for power for most builds. The second 8-pin is for extreme overclockers and the 6-pin is for extra power when running multiple 75W bus-powered cards.

The motherboard has a second 8-pin CPU power connector for heavy overclocking. Plenty of high-end gaming boards aimed at overclockers do fine with a single 8-pin so I think it's a gimmick on what's ostensibly a workstation motherboard. I run my 5930K at stock clocks and have only ever had one 8-pin CPU connector plugged in and it's worked perfectly fine.

There is not a third 8-pin connector on the motherboard, that's either a mistake or they're counting the CPU connector twice (one 8-pin ATX power OR two 8-pin EATX power)

The 6-pin power is for the PCIe slots and despite the EATX label, it takes a PCIe power connector. In theory this provides extra power to keep the board stable when running multiple power hungry cards. I've run two GTX 980s and an Intel 750 400GB drive with no issues without it plugged in.

I could maybe see it being necessary if for some reason you're running multiple bus-powered video cards (like those GTX 950s with no power plugs) or other cards that draw the max 75W from the PCIe slot.
 
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Thunderschnozzle

Caliper Novice
May 29, 2016
27
8
Hey guys,
I just registered to the SFF Forum so I can join this conversation. I'm trying to decide between the SX700-LPT and the PE-750 as well and I had an email exchange with Baron, Lian Li's representative in the US, about the warranty and the fan of the PE-750 that I though could interest everybody here. This is the summery of the exchange:



My original email:

Hey guys,

I'm trying to decide between the Lian Li PE-750 and the Silverstone
SX700-LPT PSUs. On paper, your PSU is better (750w >> 700w !!!), but I still
have 2 issues that I need to figure out:

1) Warranty - I've been building computers for a long time now and, mostly,
I've used Corsair PSUs, which usually come with a 7-10 years warranty. While
I don't expect a company that's new to the PSU market to give that long of a
warranty period I must confess that a 1 year warranty for a PSU does make me
a bit nervous (Silverstone give 3 years warranty for their PSU). Any chance
we'll be able to extend the warranty period somehow?

2) The fan - The Silverstone SX700-LPT's fan has a semi-fanless mod, which
means it doesn't start spinning until the load on the PSU is around 30%.
Does your fan has such a mode or is it a simple PWM fan that adjusts its
rpms base on the load and temp. Any chance we can get more data (maybe a
graph on your PSU's web page) that shows the correlation between PSU loading
and fan rpm ?

Thanks guys



Baron's reply to my email:

Hi ,

(1)The Warranty is 2 years .

(2)The fan will start to spin until the load on the PSU is around 30%. However,
once it start to ship , it won't stop even the load is under 30%.



My reply to Baron's reply:

Hi baron,

Thanks for responding to my email so fast. Just to clarify and verify those
2 issues before I finally pull the trigger and order this PSU from Newegg:

(1)Are you absolutely sure the warranty for the PE-750 is 2 years?
Because on the Newegg website it definitely says 1 year. Also, in the online
review by James Schell from SFF Network
(https://smallformfactor.net/reviews/powersupplies/silverstone-sx700-lpt-review-finally,
scroll all the way to the bottom and you’ll see it in the second bullet point) he also
mentions that the warranty is 1 year.

(2)Did you mean to say “The fan will [not] start to spin until the load
on the PSU is around 30%. However , once it start to ship [spin] , it won't
stop even [if] the load is under 30% .”?

Thanks again



Baron's replay to my reply to his reply :):

Hi ,

(1)If your PSU have problem during the 2 years warranty, please e-mail us. We
will take care of it .

(2)The psu fan will not spin until the load of PSU is around 30%. Once the fan
start to spin , it won’t stop even the load is under 30% again. However, there
is a chip on the PSU to adjust the fan speed ,and the fan speed change depends
on the PSU load.


So, what do you guys think?
 
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jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Feb 22, 2015
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Well, I based the 1-year warranty in the article off the Newegg listing.

I'm not sure what to think about his statement that it comes with a 2-year warranty because his second point is wrong, the fan on the PE-750 does shut off once the load drops. Also, the fan RPM doesn't vary as much as I'd expect. The review for it should go up sometime tomorrow so you'll all see what I mean.