A Look Inside

Before reading this page we strongly suggest to take a look at this article, which will help you understand the internal components of a PSU much better.


The platform of the small Golden King is identical to the one used for the Kingwin AP-550 we have reviewed last month; however the latter is rated 50W higher. Apparently this platform can deliver more power than 500W but Super Flower deliberately restricted the smallest Golden King to this capacity. Since the internals of the two aforementioned units are alike, the same single-sided PCB is used along with the familiar gold colored heatsinks and of course all components between the two platforms are identical. To boost efficiency, Super Flower utilized an LLC resonant converter in the primary side and in the secondary side synchronous design is used along with DC-DC converters for the generation of the minor rails. The only internal difference among the AP-550 and the SF-500P14PE is that the second features the two way thermal switch which controls the fan's operation.


On the AC receptacle strangely enough there are no transient filtering components since all are located on the main PCB. There we find three X caps, two pairs of Y caps (the second after the bridge rectifier) and two CM chokes. Unfortunately there isn't an MOV in the transient filtering stage. Judging from previous reviews of Super Flower units we conclude that this company doesn't believe in MOVs, since they don't employ them in their designs.


The bridge rectifier (GBU1506) is bolted on the APFC/primary heatsink and it's too strong for the mere 500W capacity of the PSU. This is of course something positive, but could have helped to save cost.


In the APFC a single IPW50R140CP fet is used along with a CREE C3D06060 boost diode. The unit's small capacity is easily covered by a single fet so there is no need for a second one, which would increase energy dissipation. The reservoir/smoothing cap is provided by Nippon Chemi-Con (400V, 470μF, 105°C, KMQ series) and its voltage rating is very close to the DC bus voltage of the APFC circuit, so a tight feedback loop needs to be maintained. The PFC controller is an Infineon NCP1653A IC and is housed on a small vertical PCB. Similar to the Kingwin PSU the main choppers are well hidden behind the main transformer and some X caps.


Right between the hold up cap and the PFC choke is a thermistor, for large inrush current protection and a relay cuts it off, once the PSU starts and the main PFC cap is fully charged.


The standby PWM controller that makes this unit ErP Lot 6 compliant is an Infineon ICE3B0565 IC. Very close to it resides the 5VSB converter.


In the secondary side a synchronous design is used, meaning that the +12V rail is regulated by mosfets instead of Schottky Barrier Rectifiers something that boosts efficiency since on SBRs forward voltage drops occur. In this case four IPP041N04N fets are used. The minor rails are generated by two VRMs which are fed by the +12V rail. All filtering caps in the secondary side are Japanese and more specific they are provided by Nippon Chemi-Con. All are rated at 105°C so they have four times longer lifespan than 85°C rated ones.


A vertical daughter-board in the secondary side hosts the LLC resonant controller which also handles the protections of the unit. Its model number is SF29601 and no information is available about it, since it is a chip tailored to Super Flower.


Soldering quality on the main PCB is good, although it doesn't reach the levels of Delta and the high-end Seasonics. However judging from the test results, which you will see on the following pages, it does its job quite well.


The cooling fan is equipped with double ball bearings and its model number is RL4Z B1402512M (12V, 0.3A, 92.16 CFM, 24.9dBA, 1200RPM). With a quick search on the net we found that the original maker of this fan is Globefan. The fan easily copes with this unit's restricted thermal dissipation and it outputs very low noise even at full speed.