Today we're having a look at the Super Flower Golden King 500W. The Golden King is a fixed cable, 80 Plus Platinum rated 500W power supply.

Some of the features called out on the front of the box are:

• "20% more ULTRA POWER"... Should I try to pretend to know what that means? Well, judging by the "high efficiency" caption underneath, it would seem like they were applying that by being more efficient, you're getting more power. Thing is, a power supply only puts out what's demanded of it, so if a power supply is more efficient, it's just drawing less power from the wall. I suppose in some convoluted way, you could say that means you're getting 20% more DC power whilst drawing the same amount of power from the wall as a lesser efficient unit, but it would require some long form math to accurately explain that so I'll just stop here.
• "Active PFC"... With power factor correction, your power supply will draw apparent power (VA) closer to the active, or "real" power (Watts) being drawn. In the U.S., this doesn't help residential customers with their electric bill because here we're charged by the amount of active power used, but in the E.U., power usage is measured in apparent power and power factor correction is mandatory.
• "Patent Plug Design"... IF this unit was modular, it would have Super Flower's patented 9 pin modular connector. But this unit isn't modular so this bullet point is meaningless to us.
• "2 Ball Bearing Silent Fan"... Ball bearing fans last longer than sleeve bearing fans and will generally outlast the power supply.
• "Energy Saving"... If this power supply is as efficient as Super Flower claims, it will save energy. Either that or you will get 20% more ULTRA POWER. You decide.
• "Japanese Capacitor (Chemi-Con)"... Essentially, this unit uses all Japanese made Nippon Chemi-Con brand capacitors which typically perform better and last longer than most Chinese made capacitors and some Taiwanese capacitors.

On the side of the box, we have a couple more features listed. Basic stuff like energy efficiency requirements, protection circuits, RoHS compliance, etc.

Also on the side of the box, we have some more features called out. Some have already been called out on the front of the box.

One thing about Super Flower is that they never hesitate to call out who makes the components within their power supplies. They've called out that they use Japanese Nippon Chemi-Con capacitors on the back of the box, and here on the side we see that again. They also point out the the MOSFET's are made by Infineon and that the active PFC diode is made by Cree.

The back of the box has a great wealth of information. Let's have a look at what their message is one block at a time.

The CPU compatibility list is just a list of current CPU's. Even if you have a power supply with one 8-pin CPU power connector, you're technically compatible with all of the listed CPU's.

Under efficiency, Super Flower essentially lists what is required to meet 80 Plus Platinum efficiency. At 20%, 50% and 100% loads, the power supply has to be 90%, 92% and 89% efficient respectively.

The fan is 140mm. I'm not quite sure why they list the AC input frequency here. You'd think that would be with the AC input voltage range capability. Under temperature, we're assured that this unit was tested to do full load under 50°C temperatures. This unit has been certified as "safe" around the globe and the housing is black.

Two dimensions are listed. This unit seems to be the smaller of the two. Odds are that the unit that is 10mm larger is the modular version of this power supply. Finally, the unit weighs in at 2.5kg.

The box features a mission statement from 80 Plus.

This part of the box explains the "Eco Intelligent Thermal Control System". Essentially, there's a switch on the unit that allows the fan to either run immediately (albeit at very low RPM's) or stay idle until internal temperatures reach 45 to 50°C.

Following a little blurb about Super Flower's patented transformer, they go back to talking about the Thermal Control System by mentioning the two way switch.

Despite all of this information, the box still lacks information about the power supply's DC output capabilities, number of cables and number of connectors. This is because Super Flower uses the same box all of the Golden King models and the "500W" on the front of the box is merely a sticker.