Silverstone SFX Series ST45SF-G 450 W Review

About two years ago, Silverstone released the ST45SF, which was a milestone in the SFX category because it packed a high capacity for its category and was, on top of that, able to deliver its full power at up to 50°C. Recently, Silverstone released another SFX PSU: the ST45SF-G. It comes with many upgrades including the 80 Plus Gold certification and a fully modular cabling design. The only area that their new model straggles behind in is the maximum operating temperature at which it can deliver its full continuous power which dropped to 40°C from the 50°C of the ST45SF, but we will still test at higher ambient to see how it performs.

The new ST45SF-G faces minimal competition in the SFX category, and the only worthy opponent is its older sibling. According to Silverstone, the ST45SF-G is an important milestone for DIY desktop computers since it offers features that were never available in the SFX category. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the only Gold SFX PSU with fully modular cables, which is amazing if we take into account how compact the unit is. The ST45SF-G offers, besides high capacity, a tight voltage regulation on all rails, and Silverstone promises low ripple on all outputs. The PSU is also equipped with two PCIe connectors and can, as such, feed a strong small-factor system equipped with a high-end graphics card. Its small footprint doesn't allow for a cooling fan larger than 80 mm, but the fan is, according to the product's official description, silent and puts out a minimum of 18 dBA. Well, we would like to know its maximum output noise, and we will provide you with the fan's speed at various load levels in this review, which should give you a good picture of its noise output.