Super Flower Leadex Gold 650w Power Supply Review

Overview

 

Despite having been established way back in 1991 we’ve seen very little from Super Flower in the UK until fairly recently and mainly in the form of Power Supplies. It’s worth taking note that they also develop and manufacture computer cases and a few other accessories as well, but it is really in the area of Power Supplies where they are most widely recognized (so much so, that companies such as EVGA use Super Flower as their OEM for some of their most highly rated Power Supplies). So rather handily I’ve been taking a look at the Super Flower Leadex Gold 650w.

Super Flower manufacture a variety of the fully modular Leadex Power Supplies to suit your needs. We have the Platinum rated Leadex Platinum series available in 1200w, 1000w, 850w, 750w or 650w, then we have the Leadex Gold series available in 1300w, 1000w, 850w, 750w and 650w like our review sample. One thing they all have in common is the availability of white or black coloured powder coatings, then a little more interestingly white LED illuminated cable sockets!

 

 

 

The Super Flower Leadex Gold 650w arrived at pcG in a predominately black box, with golden yellow highlights and a honeycomb pattern in the background. Dead in the centre is a ‘super’ picture of a flower… Ok, it’s actually a giant butterfly which also happens to be the insect of choice for the company’s logo. Why? I’ve no idea (given you’d associate neither flowers or butterflies with power supplies no matter how ‘super’ they are, does it matter?), but due to their obscurity in regards to technology, they are sure to stick in your head. To the upper left we have the Super Flower logo, lower left is the PSU wattage, then to the right of this we have the model name and type, leaving the 80+ Gold certificate in the upper right.

Over on the back and following a similar style we have the Leadex Gold 650w specifications (see Specifications/Features below), beneath this a brief description of the exclusive patents; the ECO Thermal Control System, then the High Power Vertical Double Layer Main Transformer. Whilst to the left of these we have several pictograms and labels for each of the Leadex Gold’s key features and a brief on what makes an 80 Plus Gold rated power supply.

 

 

On the left side of the box, we have a list of the Leadex Gold’s key features (see below), below this is an image of the PSU which is partially transparent to show off its innards.

Features

• 100% Full Modular Cabling Design For Easy Cable Management
• 80 PLUS ® Gold Certified, 90% 92% 89% Efficiency At 20% 50% 100% Rated Load
• Full Range Auto Voltage Detection Design 100V~240V (Active PFC)
• Comply With ATX 12V. V2.2, EPS 12V. V2.91 & SSI EPS 12V. V2.92 Specification
• Comply With Energy Star Standard & EuP (Energy Using Products) Regulation
• Over Voltage Protection / Over Current Protection / Over Power Protection / Short Circuit Protection / Under Voltage Protection
• Support All Intel/AMD Multi-Core CPU & ATX/BTX Compatible Motherboards
• Support NVIDIA® SLI™ & ATI CrossFireX™ High Performance Graphic Card
• Patented Easy To Use & Install Crystal Clear Cube Connectors with LED
• More than 2,000 times On/Off test
• Unleaded Green Materials with RoHS/WEEE Compliance
• Perfect For Professional & High Performance Gaming System

Exclusive Patents
(Taiwan & China Patents Approved, USA, Germany & Japan Patents Pending)

• ECO Intelligent Thermal Control System
• High Power Vertical Double Layer Main Transformer

(China Patent NO.:ZL2009 2 0273193.2 ; Taiwan Patent NO.:M381155)

Then on the right we have two angled images of the Leadex Gold, showing the available colours (white or black), our review sample is the black version.

 

 

Upon lifting the lid of the box, we can see the Super Flower Leadex Gold 650w PSU is very well packaged within a very dense soft foam block, allowing no movement at all.

 

 

With the top layer of foam removed and the contents emptied out, we find Super Flower have gone that extra mile with the Leadex Gold by protecting it within a white cloth bag and the cables are neatly stored in a fabric lined resealable bag. The contents include the following:

• Super Flower Leadex Gold 650w Power Supply
• Power Cables
• Thumb Screws (x4)
• Installation and Warranty Booklet

Within the bag of power cables, we find that Super Flower ship the Leadex Gold 650w PSU with a 2 pin European power lead, but no 3 pin for us guys in the UK. I’d say this is a bit of an oddity, but it isn’t something I’ve not come across before…

At the time of review the Super Flower Leadex Gold 650w is available for £89.97 from OverclockersUK or £90.45 on Amazon, whilst offering a generous 5 year warranty.

 

Specifications/Features

courtesy of Super Flower

* Additional details available here

 

First Impressions

 

 

Initial first impressions for the Super Flower Leadex Gold 650w are pretty good. Admittedly the packaging and nicely bagged items are all part of this, but then shouldn’t they be part of the experience anyway!? More importantly with the PSU in hand, it doesn’t half look bad either! It is also very solidly built, offering no flex within the casing whatsoever. However it is a little on the big side measuring in at 200mm(L) x 150mm(W) x 86mm(H), which means not only is it the longest Power Supply we’ve tested here at pcG, but I’m not entirely convinced it’ll fit within our HAF XB test case! 🙁

 

 

The top or is that bottom!? Ok, the side which has the 140mm fan. This features an octagonal gridded vent, centrally situated within this is a brushed aluminium Super Flower logo. To the right of the fan is the model name, then the far left the efficiency standard.

On the opposite side is a large flat which is entirely featureless. Despite the Leadex Gold being classed as black in colour, I’d say it’s more a very, very dark grey. Being a blank canvas of sorts seems a little unusual these days, as many power supplies have their specifications label here as it’s usually the least noticed area once in a build.

 

Super Flower have chosen the left side of the Leadex Gold for the specification label. This gives us the PSU model number, the 80 Plus Gold certification, tells us that it is a switching power supply, then lists details on the specific rails with maximum output current and combined wattage.

Whilst over on the right we have another large dark expanse, but this time we have a pretty big Super Flower logo, which is rather nicely embossed. I’ll admit I find the location of this odd though. The majority of cases we’ve seen here at pcG so far, have all shared a very common feature of being upright with any available windowed panel on the left. Which means if you mount this PSU in the typical fan side down position, you’ll be looking through your case window at a somewhat dull specifications label, while personally I’d have preferred to see the company logo.

 

 

The back of the Leadex Gold is dominated by a honeycomb mesh. To the right of this we have the usual power switch and auxiliary power socket, what is a little unusual about these is they are horizontally mounted, whereas most (maybe all?) PSU’s I’ve used before have had them mounted vertically. Just above the power socket lives the ECO Intelligent Thermal Control System Switch, which allows for either ECO or Auto mode (for testing purposes we will of course be using auto).

How odd!?! If you look at the front end of the Leadex Gold, you may (or may not) have noticed that not only is the PSU fully modular, but almost every socket is identical! So your CPU 6pin, GPU and any/all peripheral cables can plug straight into any one of the nine transparent universal 9pin sockets, leaving the 12 and 18pin sockets for your motherboard’s 24pin cable. This I personally think is a brilliant idea, helped by the sockets all being the same way up (with the release pin side facing the same way) and being more uniform than your typical PSU, should make for a very easy install even when in confined spaces. It doesn’t stop there either, the sockets aren’t just transparent because someone forgot to add dye to the plastic, but because when a socket is in use, it features white LED illumination. I’m already sold on the idea! 🙂

 

 

Leaving just the fully modular cables left of which we’ve an ample selection. Each of the PCIe, CPU and motherboard cables offer some rather nice and heavy duty black braided sleeving with a large tube of black heat shrink protecting them from fraying. Another great feature which I find often missed on many power cables is the actual wire sleeving, all of which are black which I personally think is the way they should be (would you really want a clearly visible rainbow of wires trailing from your hardware!?) The PSU socket ends of the cables feature transparent 9pin plugs to match the PSU sockets, the opposite ends are certainly more typical. The single motherboard cable is a black 20+4pin, we have two blue CPU cables (1x 4+4pin and 1x 8pin), then three red PCIe cables (2x 6+2 and 1x 6+2/6+2). The four peripheral cables follow the same colouration of the 24pin cable and consist of two SATA (4 plugs) and two combination cables (1x 2 SATA + 2 Molex and 1x 3 Molex + 1 FDD).

Overall a good selection of nicely made cables, but with one small downfall being the coloured plugs. Yes this makes getting the right cable in the right place a little easier, the black works with any rig colour scheme, but whilst I really like the red plugs, would they (or the blue) really match every rig colour scheme!?

 

Cable Details

 

 

Hardware Installation

 

Test Rig Setup

Case	Cooler Master HAF XB	Power Supply	Super Flower Leadex 650w
Motherboard	ASRock Fatal1ty Z97X Killer	CPU	Intel Core i5-4690K
CPU Cooler	Raijintek Themis	RAM	HyperX Savage 2400MHz 8GB Kit
Graphics Card	XFX AMD Radeon R9 290X DD Black Edition	SSD	HyperX FURY 120GB

 

 

Installation of a Power Supply is usually a straightforward and simple task. However installing into our HAF XB Test Rig case is usually made even easier, courtesy of a secondary PSU mounting bracket which allows for an additional 28mm to literally hang out of the back of the case.

This didn’t mean I hadn’t any cause for concern of course. With a total length of 200mm, the Super Flower Leadex Gold 650w is not only 40mm longer than our regular Corsair AX760i, but also 20mm longer than the maximum length supported by the HAF XB itself, made all the worse by the 200mm length not taking into accounts the cable plugs…

 

 

However even with the back end of the hot-swappable X-Dock control panel in the way, there’s still ample room for the Leadex Gold 650w, its cables and even a little working space! So in goes the PSU into the PSU bracket (instead of the usual PSU screws, I’ve used the included thumb-screws for convenience), which is then in turn slotted in the back of the HAF XB case with the fan side down to take advantage of the air vent beneath the PSU mount. The motherboard 24pin, fixed CPU 8pin, dual PCIe 8pin and Molex peripherals cable (for powering the HyperX Fury SSD in the X-Dock) are all plugged in, the test rig re-assembled and the power leads plugged in.

 

 

Even despite the Leadex Gold’s size, it proved no issue at all to install, which was only helped by ample cable length which also offers a good degree of flexibility. In short, Super Flower could only make fitting the Leadex Gold easier for you by doing it themselves. 😉

 

 

Then of course we have the beautiful illuminated white LED cable sockets featured on the Leadex Gold. I must confess I’m an LED junkie, be it as a feature of a case, fan, motherboard, graphics card, RAM, CPU Cooler and now PSU. Now if only someone manufactured a flashy new illuminated SSD!? 🙂

 

Testing Methodology/Setup

 

When it comes to testing Power Supplies there’s very little else you can do other than put the PSU under load and measure the voltages. As this is not a very real world test (as it only takes seconds to setup and record), we have employed a more real world test. For more details on our thoughts regarding Power supply testing check out this article.

The Power Supply is put under a real world load for 1 hour, while running both Unigine Heaven and running Prime 95 (Blend) simultaneously. Power Supplies over 750W are tested using x2 AMD Radeon 290Xs to ensure the PSU gets a real workout. The Super Flower Leadex Gold we have for review is of course a 650w PSU, which means two R9 290Xs in CrossFireX isn’t going to work, so I’ll be using just the one.

 

Hardware Performance

 

 

As you can see from the above image, the Super Flower Leadex Gold 650w Power Supply did well in our burn-in test, with all voltages (12v, 5v & 3.3V) remaining stable at (11.904v, 5.040v & 3.296v) and well within the ATX guidelines which allow for a 5% fluctuation. Throughout testing and during the week long test period no signs of instability were encountered.

 

 

Final Thoughts

 

The Leadex Gold 650w Power Supply may be the first product seen from Super Flower here at pcG, but it certainly impresses with its high build quality and lovely white LED socket illumination, it is however rather large for its capacity…

Super Flower are a new company to pcG and we’ve heard some very good things about some of their products, but your always a little hesitant until you’ve jumped in and used a product yourself. So rather nicely the lovely chaps at OverclockersUK have sent us one to form our own verdict. So what do we think? Does the Super Flower Leadex Gold 650w give us a new award for Super Flower Power or something more akin to compost?

The Super Flower Leadex 650W Power Supply arrived at pcG in a rather stylish box adorned with a huge black and golden yellow butterfly. Once opened, the Power Supply was revealed to be incredibly well protected by dense foam blocks, further concealed within a white fabric bag, whilst the cables were tidily packaged inside their own bag.

Aesthetically the Leadex Gold 650w isn’t bad at all, offering a high quality black (very dark grey) coating to match that of the high build quality and a (slightly different) octagonal fan vent, while it also features a rather nicely embossed Super Flower logo on the right side. The cables again offer the same high quality and also have coloured plugs for convenience and easy installation.

Despite its rather large size measuring 200mm(L) x 150mm(W) x 86mm(H), the Leadex Gold proved easy to install within the HAF XB test case, which was further helped by a plentiful selection of nicely flexible cables of a good length. It is worth remembering that for a 650w Power Supply the Leadex Gold is very long at 200mm and also happens to be the same size of its higher wattage siblings (Does it really need to be this big!?).

Then in the terms of performance, the Super Flower Leadex Gold 650w performed without fault. The 12v, 5v and 3.3v rails all performed well within the ATX guidelines, whilst the 140mm fan cooled the PSU quietly.

The biggest selling points of the Leadex Gold 650w for me is the white LED illuminated cable sockets and the fact that nine of the 11 sockets are completely universal, which makes them incredibly easy to install and tidying them up afterwards a dream.

I like the Super Flower Leadex Gold 650w, in fact I like it a lot and I feel it’s well priced at approximately £90.00, but there are one or two issues. Personally I’d prefer the embossed Super Flower logo to be on the left side of the PSU casing, which would offer a cleaner looking install (do we really want to see specifications labels through our case windows?). Although I appreciate the coloured plug ends being there to make installation a little easier, I’d much rather have a single colour uniformity (black). The only issue for me though is should I buy black or white, I just don’t know which colour I should choose… 😉

 

Verdict

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Many thanks to Super Flower for providing this sample for review