PSU Group Test: 500W, 600W, 700W, 850W

SilverPower SP-SS500

Manufacturer: SilverPower
UK Price (as reviewed): £48.28 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): Not available

SilverPower is the budget brand of the company that produces the Tagan mid-range PSUs. Thus, while most Tagan PSUs are in the 600-1kW range, this SilverPower is rated at just 500W. That said, this nautical-sounding PSU should still be powerful enough to supply a PC with a quad-core CPU and a single mid-range graphics card. It has two 12V rails, each rated at 17A, with a maximum combined output of 34A.

These are configured so that 12V1 supplies power to the motherboard, two PCI-E cables (one 6-pin and one 6+2-pin) and the disk drives. Meanwhile, 12V2 is dedicated to providing power to the CPU. This is a sensible arrangement for a PSU with two 12V rails as it separates the two most power-hungry components – the CPU and graphics card – on to separate rails. Inside the SP-SS500, you’ll find the same Seasonic PCB that’s inside the Arctic Cooling's Fusion 550R PSU which was also on test, although the latter is rated at a slightly higher 550W.


The SP-SS500’s 120mm fan is fairly quiet at low load levels but is rather noisy at full load – a common problem with many cheaper PSUs. However, the SP-SS500 is very efficient at low load levels, with an impressive average of 88 per cent. This dropped to 84 per cent at full load but, more worryingly, the output from the 5V rail fell to 4.61V at full load. This is way below the minimum 4.75V limit set down in the ATX specification, and might cause your PC to crash. Although the SP-SS500 is very cheap and its efficiency is above average, its weak 5V rail and audible fan mean we can’t recommend it.

• Stability
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• x
• x
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• x
• -
• -
• -
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• 6/10

• Features
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• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
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• 4/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Overall
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• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 6/10

Score Guide