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Ripple Measurements

To learn how we measure ripple, please click here.

The following table includes the ripple levels we measured on the SFX L Power 600W's rails. The limits, according to the ATX specification, are 120mV (+12V) and 50mV (5V, 3.3V and 5VSB).

Test	12V	5V	3.3V	5VSB	Pass/Fail
10% Load	8.1mV	8.0mV	11.9mV	6.0mV	Pass
20% Load	10.7mV	9.2mV	14.0mV	7.8mV	Pass
30% Load	13.7mV	11.0mV	17.7mV	8.8mV	Pass
40% Load	17.3mV	12.1mV	18.6mV	10.1mV	Pass
50% Load	22.0mV	14.6mV	19.6mV	11.7mV	Pass
60% Load	27.6mV	16.1mV	21.7mV	13.5mV	Pass
70% Load	30.3mV	17.8mV	25.5mV	15.3mV	Pass
80% Load	36.1mV	20.2mV	27.6mV	16.8mV	Pass
90% Load	40.0mV	21.4mV	30.1mV	19.2mV	Pass
100% Load	45.9mV	23.6mV	31.9mV	21.3mV	Pass
110% Load	57.4mV	25.2mV	35.8mV	23.8mV	Pass
Cross-Load 1	14.1mV	13.7mV	18.7mV	11.1mV	Pass
Cross-Load 2	52.8mV	21.9mV	30.2mV	18.8mV	Pass

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Ripple suppression on the +12V and 3.3V rails is average, while it's fairly good on the 5V and 5VSB rails. We would like to see below 40mV ripple at +12V under full load, and close to 25mV at 3.3V under the same conditions.

Ripple Oscilloscope Screenshots

The following oscilloscope screenshots illustrate the AC ripple and noise registered on the main rails (+12V, 5V, 3.3V and 5VSB). The bigger the fluctuations on the screen, the bigger the ripple/noise. We set 0.01 V/Div (each vertical division/box equals 0.01V) as the standard for all measurements.

Ripple At Full Load

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Ripple At 110-Percent Load

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Ripple At Cross-Load 1

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Ripple At Cross-Load 2

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Aris Mpitziopoulos

Aris Mpitziopoulos is a Contributing Editor at Tom's Hardware US, covering PSUs.

7 Comments Comment from the forums

reghir

Not sure take a look at NewEgg reviews which show 3 users reporting DOA units
Reply
AC____

How does it compare to Corsair's?
Reply
Aris_Mp

The SF600 has higher performance. This is shown in the relative performance chart. However in the overall noise score the SF600 is much higher as well, because its fan profile gets highly aggressive once you load its minor rails. In real life conditions where the minor rails are lightly used, it is quite silent.
Reply
Aris_Mp

DOA can happen for several reasons, with hard shipping conditions being one of them.
Reply
expert_vision

You know what baffles me? How is it possible that no monitoring is offered in today PSUs ? I used to have a HighPower PSU 10 years ago that had a simple 7 segment display, showing instantaneous power draw in watts, and a 3 header pin for FAN RPM. You'd think by today that would be standard. But no, instead they put freaking RGB in everything ...
Reply
HERETIC-1

Too expensive when you cheap out on a 85C primary cap.
Reply
below

I had bought one of them a few weeks ago and after installing in bitfenix portal case it has start to randomly make noises. I had rebuild my block two times just to make sure that there is nothing except PSU fan itself making that noise. The noise is comparably with very old HDD's or even Floppy crunching, its super annoying and only appears in PSU working state (when fan at the bottom) and mostly on high load, also noise could be very loud

Also I have found some review on Spanish (I think) from amazon about this PSU and customer have exactly the same issue, so looks like it could be design problem.
This PSU is a winner of most comparisons an reviews everywhere and I very dissapointed that none of reviewers couldn't find such awfull issue for quiet PSU.

Also it should be a shame for company named 'be quiet' that it's 'silent wings' in that PSU making that horrible noises.
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