Specifications

Platinum efficiency and fanless design are the most crucial characteristics of this unit. In addition it weighs way too much for a 500W unit, because of the extra large heatsink that sits on top of it, where the cooling fan typically resides. The warranty is long enough especially for a fanless PSU which naturally has much higher internal temperatures, compared to PSUs that are actively cooled. Also we were quite surprised to not find Over Temperature Protection included in the PSU's characteristics. Either Super Flower is very sure that the PSU will efficiently dissipate heat under all circumstances or they were quite confident that due to low energy dissipation the internal temperature will never reach critical limits. Nevertheless we think that OTP should be included.
Finally, the price is high, but unfortunately low noise PC components come at a price premium.


Not much to comment here. One +12V rail which can deliver almost the full power of the PSU, common for units that utilize DC-DC converters for the minor rails generation. Speaking of the minor rails, these are a bit weak since their max combined power is restricted to 100W. Nevertheless you won't need more than 100W in a contemporary system that is covered by a 500-600W PSU.

Cables & Connectors, Power Distribution

For its capacity the Golden Silent 500 W features a satisfactory number of connectors, especially PCIe ones. Regarding cable length we would like to see a little longer ATX cable (at least 600 mm) and the same goes for the PCIe ones. Also the distance between all modular connectors is way to small at only 105-110 mm, while the ATX spec recommends 150 mm. Finally the main ATX connector along with the EPS one use 16 AWG wires while all others use 18 AWG.

Since this PSU features a single +12V rail we do not have anything to comment about its power distribution.