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While we have been focusing recently on super high power output supplies in excess of 1000 watts, we felt today it was worth revisiting a popular unit sold by Overclockers UK for £85.99 inc vat. The Super Flower Leadex Gold 650W is fully modular with 80 Plus Gold Certification and support for two high end graphics cards – ideal for those building a new SLI or Crossfire system with a budget under £100.
Superflower have been earning a good reputation in recent months. KitGuru reviewed the excellent EVGA SuperNOVA P2 1600 and EVGA SuperNOVA P2 1200 power supplies in the last month and their partner of choice? Super Flower.
The Super Flower Leadex Gold range has been doing the rounds now for many months, with models ranging in capacity from 650W to 1300W. We wanted to take a look at the 650watt model, as it targets the widest possible enthusiast audience.
Features:
- 100% Full Modular Cabling Design For Easy Cable Management
- 80 PLUS ® Gold Certified, 90% 92% 89% Efficiency At 20% 50% 100% Rated Load
- Full Range Auto Voltage Detection Design 100V~240V (Active PFC)
- Comply With ATX 12V. V2.2, EPS 12V. V2.91 & SSI EPS 12V. V2.92 Specification
- Comply With Energy Star Standard & EuP (Energy Using Products) Regulation
- Over Voltage Protection / Over Current Protection / Over Power Protection / Short Circuit Protection / Under Voltage Protection
- Support All Intel/AMD Multi-Core CPU & ATX/BTX Compatible Motherboards
- Support NVIDIA SLI & ATI CrossFireX™ High Performance Graphic Card
- Patented Easy To Use & Install Crystal Clear Cube Connectors with LED
- More than 2,000 times On/Off test
- Unleaded Green Materials with RoHS/WEEE Compliance
- Perfect For Professional & High Performance Gaming System
The box artwork for the Super Flower Leadex Gold 650W is quite dull and immediately forgettable. No images of the unit either, which is disappointing.
The back of the box highlights a fairly substantial list of technical data.
The power supply is protected between two blocks of thick foam. A user manual rests on top. The cables and other accessories are stored in a resealable bag, shown above. Mounting screws are also included.
The included cables are high quality, and all black. The headers are colour coordinated to make life a little easier. There are a total of ten cables included in the box.
| Cable | Connectors |
| ATX 20+4 pin | x1 (540mm) |
| 6+2 pin PCIe | x4 (540mm+130mm) |
| 4+4 pin EPS12V/ATX12V | x1 (650mm) |
| SATA | x6 (500m+130mm) |
| MOLEX | x3 (500m+130mm) |
| MOLEX | x2 (500mm+130mm) |
| FDD | x1 (+150mm) |
We have no complaints with the amount of cables supplied … considering this is a 650 watt unit. There are enough cables to power a capable system with multiple hard drives, SSD's and two Nvidia or AMD graphics cards.
The Super Flower Leadex Gold 650W is a plain black power supply, suitable visually for basically any system you may be building. A white version is also available. The paint quality is quite good and it pretty much passed our screwdriver test, with only a slight scratch visible. Our scratch test involves running the head of a Philip’s screwdriver down the side of the chassis with weak to modest pressure. How often have you accidentally hit a power supply with some tools during a system build phase?
The fan is hidden by a grill which is cut into the chassis. We will take a closer look at the fan when we open the chassis later in the review.
The side panels look plain black on first glance, but closer inspection highlights the ‘Super Flower' brand name and logo, etched into the metal.
One side of the chassis is vented with a power connector and switch at the side. There is an ‘AUTO' and ‘ECO' switch underneath which offers fan control adjustment. ECO mode activates a semi passive mode to allow the fan to stay slow until a specific temperature is hit.
The modular panel is very fancy looking, with white headers built into the chassis – these light up white when in action. There are 9 universal modular connectors which can take any of the cables, although the main motherboard cable connects to the larger port bottom right in the image above.
| Super Flower Leadex Gold 650W PSU | |||||
|
DC Output
|
+5V
|
+3.3V
|
+12V |
-12V
|
+5Vsb
|
|
Max Output
|
22A
|
24A
|
54.1A |
0.5A
|
3A
|
| Max Combined Wattage | 110W | 649.2W | 6W | 15W | |
| 650W | |||||
The power supply can deliver 649Watts to the +12V rail. The +3.3V and +5V rail output 24A and 22A respectively. The Bitfenix Fury 650W which we reviewed a few months ago can deliver 26A to both of these rails (although the +12V output is a little weaker – to 50A).
Super Flower are using a Fluid Dynamic Bearing fan by Globe Fan, model number RL4Z S1402512M. This is a low noise fan, rated to a maximum of 1,500rpm.
The Leadex design uses an LLC resonant converter with bridge topology to offer lossless switching. The secondary side uses a synchronous design with mosfets and two DC to DC converters – these generate the minor rails. The main PCB is home to the filtering components which consists of CM chokes, two X caps, two pair of Y caps and an MOV.
Overall, soldering quality is good, but a little below what we would consider the highest grade.
Super Flower are using a high grade Japanese capacitor in the primary stage. The Nippon Chemi Con capacitor (KMQ series) is rated 105c, 400V and 470uF. On this page we present some high resolution images of the product. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source.
Additional technical assistance: Peter McFarland and Jeremy Price.
Correctly testing power supplies is a complex procedure and KitGuru have configured a test bench which can deliver up to a 2,000 watt DC load. Due to public requests we have changed our temperature settings recently – previously we rated with ambient temperatures at 25C, we have increased ambient temperatures by 10c (to 35c) in our environment to greater reflect warmer internal chassis conditions.
We use combinations of the following hardware:
• SunMoon SM-268
• CSI3710A Programmable DC load (+3.3V and +5V outputs)
• CSI3711A Programmable DC load (+12V1, +12V2, +12V3, and +12V4)
• Extech Power Analyzer
• Extech MultiMaster MM570 digital multimeter
• SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter (6-130dBa)
• Digital oscilloscope (20M S/s with 12 Bit ADC)
• Variable Autotransformer, 1.4 KVA
|
DC Output Load Regulation
|
||||||||||
|
Combined DC Load |
+3.3V
|
+5V
|
+12V
|
+5VSB
|
-12V | |||||
|
A
|
V
|
A
|
V
|
A
|
V
|
A
|
V
|
A | V | |
|
152W
|
2.08
|
3.32
|
2.04
|
5.05
|
10.14
|
12.24
|
0.50
|
5.02
|
0.20
|
-12.06
|
|
270W
|
3.05
|
3.32
|
3.07
|
5.04
|
19.16
|
12.22
|
0.50
|
5.01
|
0.30
|
-12.08
|
|
400W
|
4.05
|
3.32
|
5.05
|
5.02
|
29.18
|
12.18 |
1.00
|
5.01
|
0.30
|
-12.09
|
| 523W |
6.08
|
3.31
|
7.06
|
5.02
|
38.31
|
12.14
|
1.50
|
5.01 |
0.30
|
-12.10
|
|
650W
|
8.00
|
3.31
|
9.02
|
5.01
|
48.00
|
12.10
|
2.50
|
5.00
|
0.30
|
-12.11
|
Load regulation is good with all rails holding within 1 percent deviation.
| Super Flower Leadex Gold 650W |
Maximum Load |
| 715W |
The power supply would shut down at 715W, gracefully. The protection circuitry worked well.
Next we want to try Cross Loading. This basically means loads which are not balanced. If a PC for instance needs 500W on the +12V outputs but something like 30W via the combined 3.3V and +5V outputs then the voltage regulation can fluctuate badly.
| Cross Load Testing | +3.3V | +5V | +12V | -12V | +5VSB | |||||
| A | V | A | V | A | V | A | V | A | V | |
| 590W | 1.0 | 3.32 | 1.0 | 5.05 | 48.0 | 12.09 | 0.2 | -12.04 | 0.50 | 5.01 |
| 145W | 12.0 | 3.31 | 15.0 | 5.00 | 2.0 | 12.22 | 0.2 | -12.03 | 0.50 | 5.00 |
Cross load results are also strong, with all the rails holding well, without much deviation.
We then used an oscilloscope to measure AC ripple and noise present on the DC outputs. We set the oscilloscope time base to check for AC ripple at both high and low ends of the spectrum. ATX12V V2.2 specification for DC output ripple and noise is defined in the ATX 12V power supply design guide.
|
ATX12V Ver 2.2 Noise/Ripple Tolerance
|
|
|
Output
|
Ripple (mV p-p)
|
|
+3.3V
|
50
|
|
+5V
|
50
|
|
+12V1
|
120
|
|
+12V2
|
120
|
|
-12V
|
120
|
|
+5VSB
|
50
|
Obviously when measuring AC noise and ripple on the DC outputs the cleaner (less recorded) means we have a better end result. We measured this AC signal amplitude to see how closely the unit complied with the ATX standard.
| AC Ripple (mV p-p) | ||||
| DC Load | +3.3V | +5V | +12V | 5VSB |
| 152W | 10 | 10 | 10 | 5 |
| 270W | 10 | 10 | 10 | 5 |
| 400W | 15 | 10 | 10 | 5 |
| 523W | 15 | 10 | 15 | 10 |
| 650W | 15 | 10 | 15 | 10 |
Ripple suppression is excellent, with all rails holding between 10mV and 15mV at full load.
|
Efficiency (%)
|
|
|
152W
|
90.23
|
|
270W
|
92.18
|
|
400W
|
91.83
|
|
523W
|
91.14
|
|
650W
|
90.55
|
Efficiency is strong, peaking at just over 92 percent around 50 percent load. This drops to just over 90 percent efficiency at full load.
We take the issue of noise very seriously at KitGuru and this is why we have built a special home brew system as a reference point when we test noise levels of various components. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on components we are testing. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
Today to test the Power Supply we have taken it into our acoustics room environment and have set our SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter (6-130dBa) one meter away from the unit. We have no other fans running so we can effectively measure just the noise from the unit itself.
As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 Player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
|
Noise (dBA)
|
|
|
152W
|
28.0
|
|
270W
|
28.8
|
|
400W
|
31.3
|
|
523W
|
34.2
|
| 650W | 36.1 |
The fan doesn't spin much until 500 watts is demanded. At 550W the fan is audible and at 650 watts the noise is clearly noticeable, rating at just over 36 dBa.
|
Temperature (c)
|
||
|
Intake
|
Exhaust
|
|
|
152W
|
36
|
41
|
|
270W
|
39
|
48
|
|
400W
|
42
|
54
|
|
523W
|
43
|
57
|
|
650W
|
45
|
61
|
At full load exhaust temperature was hitting 61c.
|
Maximum load
|
Efficiency
|
|
715W
|
89.6
|
Pushing the power supply above its rated limits generates an ultimate efficiency level of around 89.6%. This is not a viable ‘real world’ situation, but it is interesting nonetheless.Super Flower has been cementing its position in the high end power supply sector this year and their Leadex Gold 650W has been a big seller for good reason – it is an excellent all round unit with no discernible weaknesses.
Aesthetically we like the appearance of the Super Flower Leadex Gold 650W, and while our unit was supplied in black there is also a white version available from Overclockers UK at the same price. The white version will surely appeal to those buying a windowed white chassis from the likes of NZXT or Corsair.
The performance of the Leadex Gold 650W is up there with market leaders Delta and Seasonic, and the ripple suppression in particular is truly remarkable. The 3.3V+ and 5V+ rails peak at 15mV and 10mV respectively. The 12V+ rail holds steady between 10mV and 15mV – some of the best results you would be likely to expect from any power supply manufacturer.
Load regulation rated as excellent and the Super Flower unit passed our tricky cross load test with flying colours. It also managed to deliver well in excess of 700 watts before shutting down safely.
The only negative of this particular unit was the noise of the fan when the unit was tasked when holding a steady 550 Watts or higher. While the overall noise rating wasn't exceptionally high, the pitch of the fan was a little annoying – to my ears anyway. While this may have been related to our specific sample on some level, we can't see a situation were a user would be constantly tasking this power supply close to 90% of its rated output. If you need a constant 600watts or higher, we would recommend you aim for a 850 watt unit or greater.
You can buy a white and black version from Overclockers UK for £85.99 inc vat. It is not a cheap power supply, but considering the technical proficiency and the quality of the power delivered we feel it is a MUST HAVE product.
Pros:
- Class leading ripple suppression.
- Very efficient
- superb build quality.
- tight voltage regulation.
- LED lit connectors
- Semi passive mode.
- black and white versions.
Cons:
- Fan was a little intrusive at full load.
- tough competition at the price point.
Kitguru says: An excellent ‘mainstream' power supply for a new gaming rig, and one that earns our highest recommendation.
