Introduction

We would like to thank Rosewill for supplying the review sample.

Rosewill, for those who are not aware, is Newegg’s (one of the largest online stores for PC parts on the planet) house brand. Although house brands usually offer affordable and, most of the time, lower quality products, Rosewill chose a different path for their power products, and they have, in our opinion, made the right choice. Their new PSU lines are Tachyon (we have evaluated the Tachyon 1000 W a while ago and were left quite satisfied) and SilentNight, which reminds us of Christmas, although Christmas (at least for 2012) has already passed. Members of both of the above series are made by Super Flower: OEM and producer of high quality products that meet the strong competition from Delta, Flextronics, and Seasonic eye to eye. The SilentNight-500 is essentially a rebadge of the Super Flower Golden Silent 500 W unit we already reviewed in the past with our old setup, and we are very curious to check on the performance of this platform with our new, shiny Chroma loads that offer far more accurate results.

The SilentNight-500 is a passive PSU, which means that it isn't equipped with a cooling fan in order to keep its output noise as low as possible. It is, furthermore, 80 Plus Platinum certified, has a single +12V rail that can deliver the unit’s full power by itself, and comes with a semi-modular cabling design. One of its key features are its four PCIe connectors. The competition (Seasonic) only offers two with their fanless units. This means that you can hook two high-end VGAs up to the SilenNight 500 W without running out of power.

Specifications

The unit can deliver its full power at up to 50°C, which is the corresponding recommendation of the ATX specification. The SilentNight-500 is also 80 Plus Platinum certified, and its high efficiency will help it maintain a cold operation due to minimized energy losses. Regarding its protection features: it is, according to Rosewill, equipped with most available protection features, while Super Flower states that the similar Golden Silent 500 W lacks OCP and UVP, but what matters the most here is that OTP (Over Temperature Protection) was omitted, and that protection feature is crucial to a fanless PSU.
The dimensions of the unit are a little bigger than the standard since its length reaches 17 cm, so you have to check your chassis before buying it. The unit's enormous, top-mounted heatsink removes heat out of the PSU's internals, but it also adds a lot of extra weight to the unit. Finally, the warranty is set to five years and the price looks quite stiff.


There is only one +12V rail, and it can almost deliver the full power of the PSU, so it will easily handle two VGAs. The minor rails have sufficient power for today's standards and the unit's category. The 5VSB can deliver 2.5 A max current output, which is the minimum for a modern PSU.

Cables & Connectors, Power Distribution

Cable configuration is adequate considering the capacity of the unit, but we would like to see a slightly longer ATX cable of at least 600 mm and modular PCIe cables that are 10 cm longer. Thankfully, the distance amongst all connectors is sufficient. The +12V and ground wires on the main ATX connector as well as those on the EPS connector use 16AWG wires. All other gauges are of 18AWG size.

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

Packaging

The SilentNight-500 comes in a relative small box featuring a top handle to help you move it around more easily, which is nice since the unit itself is quite heavy. At the front, we find a semi-quarter shot of the unit with the top-mounted heatsink in the foreground. Next to the unit's photo (on the left) reside descriptions of the series and the model along with badges for its Platinum efficiency, the five-year warranty, and its modular cabling system that is actually only semi-modular.

Only Rosewill's logo and the series name are depicted on this side.


On the rear side, we find a table describing all available connectors, a brief list of the unit's main features, and the power specifications table.