Super Flower Leadex III Gold 750W (2019) Review

1. Introduction2. Bundle & Cabling3. External4. Internal5. Testing Methodology and Results6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

We reviewed many Super Flower power supplies in the past, and today we get a hands on with one of their latest models – the Leadex III gold rated unit, in a 750W capacity. This new design is fully modular, 80 Plus Gold rated and has three cooling modes. The company claim that the newest models are more economical and quiet than previous iterations and have an improved 7 year warranty period for peace of mind.

Superflower are releasing four models in this family from 550W to 850W, and we look at the second from top model in the range today. All of these adopt the latest Leadex III design. One of the new features is the adoption of Fans which use Fluid Dynamic Bearing Technology. The new switching system on the rear of the chassis means that the end user can change between three cooling methods.

The fact that the latest models are fully modular will appease a large audience looking to create tidy system builds, often on show with windowed side panels. Superflower also include two 4+4 Pin connectors to support more demanding system loads from the likes of AMD's Threadripper. This specific 750W model includes four 6+2 pin PCIe connectors for graphics card support.

Technical Details:

• Dimensions: 150 x 85 x 160 mm (W x H x D)
• Weight: 2,3 kg
• Fan: 135 mm (FDB bearings; automatic control via selectable active- and two semi-passive modes)
• Colour: Black
• Efficiency: min. 92/90/89 % at 50/20/100 % Load, 80 PLUS Gold 230V EU Certified
• Active PFC
• Form factor: ATX12V/EPS12V
• Performance: 750 W
  +3,3V: 20 A
  +5V: 20 A
  +3,3V & +5V: 100 W
  +12V: 62,4 A / 748,8 W
  -12V: 0,5 A / 6 W
  +5Vsb: 3 A / 15 W
• Manufacturer’s guarantee: 7 Years
• Protective circuits: Over- and under voltage (OVP, UVP), short circuit (SCP), overload (OPP), overheating (OTP) and overcurrent (OCP for +3.3- and +5-volt rails)

I have never been a fan of Super Flower boxes, and this new model continues the awful trend of not showing any pictures of the product inside, focusing on a shaded version of their company logo. Yes a butterfly, in monochrome.

Adding to the ‘cheese factor' we have a suitably ludicrous and meaningless slogan ‘Power Up, Gaming on. Best For Gaming.'  There is even an ‘eSports' logo beside this (?). I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during that meeting. We imagine many darts where thrown randomly at an ‘ideas board' while the boss had the day off.

The rear of the box at least has something meaningful on show and if you can look past the mish mash multicoloured brown and yellow panels, you get an idea of their patents regarding their ‘ECO Intelligent Thermal Control System II' along with the use of Japanese Capacitors and 80 Plus Gold Certification.

Inside the box with the power supply is a user manual, mounting screws and a bag of modular cables. No felt or plastic cable ties unfortunately in our box.

The cables are a mixture of sleeved and ribbon style – with the CPU and GPU and mainboard cables all being sleeved. The Peripheral cables are all ribbon style, flat and easy to route behind the board and to keep out of view. The cables are all high quality.

• Connectors (removable):
  1x 24-Pin-EPS12V (600 mm)
  2x 4+4-Pin EPS12V/ATX12V (700 mm)
  2x Two 6+2-Pin PCIe (550 + 150 mm)
  2x Four SATA (550 + 120 + 120 + 120 mm)
  1x Four 4-Pin Molex (550 + 100 + 100 + 100 mm)

The Superflower Leadex III is nicely finished – in a minimalist black colour scheme making it ideal for any colour of system build. It measures 150 x 85 x 160 mm (WxHxD).

The top of the chassis looks great, with holes behind cut into the chassis itself, rather than the more traditional screwed in grill. The butterfly logo takes pride of place in the center.

One side of the power supply is vented for air flow, along with a power button and connector. On the side side of the panel is a button marked ‘fan'.

Two ECO modes are in place setting different temperature thresholds. These modes are based around temperature curves with the fan stopping at lower to medium loads. In ECO 0 mode the fans start as soon as the temperatures hit between 62c and 68c. If the temperatures drop to between 47c and 53c the fan will stop again. In ECO 1 mode, the fan will start spinning between 42c and 48c dropping off again between 27c and 33c.

The other side of the chassis is home to the modular bay. This panel is clearly labelled to match with the cable pin count. The Peripheral cable headers are all 3+3 pin. VGA and CPU are 4+4. Motherboard connectors are 5+5 and 9+9.

Corsair SF750 SFX Power Supply
DC Output	+3.3V	+5V	+12V	-12V	+5Vsb
Max Output	20A	20A	62.4A	0.6A	3.0A
Total Power	100W		748.8W	6W	15W
	750W

The Super Flower Leadex III Gold 750W power supply is able to deliver almost the full 750W from the +12V rail.

The fan inside the Super Flower Leadex III Gold 750W is a fluid dynamic bearing model from Globe Fan (S1282412H) rated 12V 0.35A. It is 128mm X 128mm X 24mm. dBA : 40.8 dB. CFM 78.06. A partial plastic cover is placed on the left side of the fan to forcibly direct airflow over the components underneath.

Below - a High Resolution Gallery of the internal layout of the Power supply.

If you can’t see the image gallery above then you will likely need to white list us in your ad blocker as they are known to interfere with our display code.

Super Flower's platform is using LLC resonance conversion in the primary stage and DC-DC downward conversion for the +3.3V and +5V rails. This independent voltage regulation ensures that the output voltages always remain close to the set point, even when the loads are tricky, such as asymmetrical. Leadex like to make a point that this platform is good for demanding system builds, included those that are overclocked.

We can see that Superflower are not compromising with the quality of their electrolytic & solid polymer capacitors on both primary and secondary stages, as they have adopted Japanese brands throughout from Nippon Chemi Con and Nichicon. The two primary capacitors are from respected Japanese manufacturer Nippon Chemi Con (KMR series) – both rated 105c @ 400V 330uF, for a combined healthy 660uF capacity. Nippon Chemi Con are some of the finest capacitors on the market in my long term findings over the years.

The soldering on the PCB board is also very high grade, and it is clear Superflower are confident their overall design is efficient, as there is really only one major heatsink on the board.

Correctly testing power supplies is a complex procedure and KitGuru have configured a test bench which can deliver up to a 2,000 watt DC load.

Due to public requests we have changed our temperature settings recently – previously we rated with ambient temperatures at 25C, we have increased ambient temperatures by 10c (to 35c) in our environment to greater reflect warmer internal chassis conditions.

We test this particular unit at the ECO 1 setting.

We use combinations of the following hardware:
• SunMoon SM-268
• CSI3710A Programmable DC load (+3.3V and +5V outputs)
• CSI3711A Programmable DC load (+12V1, +12V2, +12V3, and +12V4)
• Extech Power Analyzer
• Extech MultiMaster MM570 digital multimeter
• Extech digital sound level meter
• Digital oscilloscope (20M S/s with 12 Bit ADC)
• Variable Autotransformer, 1.4 KVA

DC Output Load Regulation
Combined DC Load	+3.3V		+5V		+12V		+5VSB		-12V
	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V
75W	0.95	3.35	0.93	5.05	5.13	12.04	0.50	5.04	0.20	-12.08
150W	1.65	3.35	1.66	5.05	10.61	12.04	1.00	5.03	0.20	-12.07
375W	3.00	3.34	3.02	5.04	28.11	12.03	1.50	5.03	0.30	-12.07
565W	4.05	3.34	4.07	5.04	42.94	12.02	2.00	5.01	0.30	-12.07
750W	4.90	3.33	5.24	5.03	57.48	12.01	2.50	5.00	0.50	-12.06

Load regulation proves to be excellent, holding within 1.5% of the recommended guidelines.

Super Flower Leadex III Gold 750W	Maximum Load
	833W

We managed to reach around 833W before the unit would shut down gracefully, after the protection kicked in. This is around 83 watts more than the rated output.

Next we want to try Cross Loading. This basically means loads which are not balanced. If a PC for instance needs 500W on the +12V outputs but something like 30W via the combined 3.3V and +5V outputs then the voltage regulation can fluctuate badly.

Cross Load Testing	+3.3V		+5V		+12V		-12V		+5VSB
	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V	A	V
734W	1.0	3.35	1.0	5.05	60.0	12.00	0.2	-12.06	0.50	5.04
154W	15.0	3.31	15.0	4.98	2.0	12.04	0.2	-12.05	0.50	5.03

The unit passes our Cross Load testing without any problems. When hit with 60 AMPS the +12V rail held at 12.00 which is a reference result. It is unlikely in a real life situation you would be doing this, but its good to see the design is holding up extremely well under demanding situations.

We then used an oscilloscope to measure AC ripple and noise present on the DC outputs. We set the oscilloscope time base to check for AC ripple at both high and low ends of the spectrum.

ATX12V V2.2 specification for DC output ripple and noise is defined in the ATX 12V power supply design guide.

ATX12V Ver 2.2 Noise/Ripple Tolerance
Output	Ripple (mV p-p)
+3.3V	50
+5V	50
+12V1	120
+12V2	120
-12V	120
+5VSB	50

Obviously when measuring AC noise and ripple on the DC outputs the cleaner (less recorded) means we have a better end result. We measured this AC signal amplitude to see how closely the unit complied with the ATX standard.

AC Ripple (mV p-p)
DC Load	+3.3V	+5V	+12V	5VSB
75W	5	5	10	5
150W	5	5	15	10
375W	5	10	15	10
565W	5	10	20	10
750W	10	10	20	10

Noise suppression results are excellent, peaking at 10mV on the +3.3V and +5V rails under full load. The +12V rail peaks at 20mV under full load conditions. Great results really overall.

Efficiency (%) 240V
75W	89.6
150W	91.6
375W	92.3
565W	91.6
750W	89.4

Efficiency is good for an 80 Plus Gold unit, peaking at just over 92% around 50% load. At full load the power supply maintains an 89.4% efficiency level, which is impressive.

We take the issue of noise very seriously at KitGuru and this is why we have built a special home brew system as a reference point when we test noise levels of various components. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on components we are testing. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

Today to test the power supply we have taken it into our acoustics room environment and have set our Digital Sound Level Noise Decibel Meter Style 2 one meter away from the unit. We have no other fans running so we can effectively measure just the noise from the unit itself.

As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 Player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

Noise (dBA)
75W	<28.0
150W	<28.0
375W	31.8
565W	32.7
750W	33.6

The fan in this unit is very quiet under most load conditions, even with the fan set to the most active switch setting on the rear of the power supply. At higher loads it becomes more active, but it is never intrusive. The pitch is quite low too, which is easy on the ears.

Temperature (c)
	Intake	Exhaust
75W	36	39
150W	38	43
375W	39	48
565W	45	57
750W	47	60

The large fan works well to expel heat out the rear of the chassis. The overall results are very good indeed.

Maximum load	Efficiency
833W	88.8

At 833 watts, the efficiency level measures 88.8%. Not a practical situation to be running 24/7, but worth noting.

The Super Flower Leadex platform has always been one of the best on the market –  delivering high quality power at affordable price points. The third iteration of the platform is fully modular, has a 7 year warranty, a 135mm high grade fluid dynamic bearing fan and is 80 Plus Gold Certified.

Technically, there is no doubt this is a solid, high performance power supply. Super Flower's platform is using LLC resonance conversion in the primary stage and DC-DC downward conversion for the +3.3V and +5V rails. It proved most effective in our analysis over the last week. Superflower have adopted 105c Japanese capacitors in the design from companies such as Nippon Chemi Con and Nichicon on both primary and secondary stages, ensuring long term stability under demanding situations.

Our results highlight no noticeable weaknesses. It passed our cross load tests with ease, and delivered great stability. Load regulation is solid, falling within 1.5% of reference specifications. Noise suppression proved stellar, peaking at 10mV on the +3.3V and +5V rails under full load with the +12V rail at 20mV under the same conditions.

The Super Flower Leadex III Gold 750W unit managed to deliver over 830 watts of power before it shut down safely and we managed to run it steady at 800 watts for some time without any issues. Not something you would want to do on a regular basis mind you, as it is well outside the maximum efficiency range.

You can buy the Super Flower Leadex III 750W unit from Overclockers UK for £99.95 inc vat HERE. At this price point it offers great value for money.

Pros:

• Can deliver over 800 watts sustained.
• High grade 105c Japanese Nippon Chemi Con and Nichicon capacitors.
• over 92% efficiency.
• dual 4+4 pin CPU connectors.
• 7 year warranty.
• 135 Fluid Dynamic fan is quiet.
• 3 fan mode settings.

Cons:

• A lot of competition around £100.
• The box looks like one for a toaster in Curry's.

KitGuru says: The Super Flower Leadex III Gold 750W power supply performed well in our tests, achieving over 92% efficiency and proving rock solid, even when delivering 800 watts of power.

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