Xilence Performance A+ III Series 550w PSU Review

A Closer Look

Out of the box, one of the most instantly eye-catching aspects of the Xilence Performance A+ III Series is the bright red fan. While we have seen a number of manufacturers color their fans in an attempt to make their product a little flashier, this is, without a doubt one of the best implementations we’ve encountered.

It is, admittedly, a little disappointing that, when upon closer inspection, it’s revealed that you can actually see the fan recessed into the top of the PSU. Not only that but with a very slight mismatch in color, it clearly wasn’t the overall intended design. Particularly since you can just peek around the edges of it to (just) see the interior of the PSU.

As this is a semi-modular power supply, you do have a small number of additional ports that allow for additional peripheral connections. These are rather cramped and being set directly above each other, don’t make cable removal/insertion as easy as you might like. With the non-modular part containing the 24-pin motherboard, CPU and a double strip VGA connector, however, this should be perfect for the vast majority of users.

In terms of the main power input, the area has lots of vents which should help promote a good and clean airflow. As you can see in the picture below, nearly all available space has been used for ventilation which should, all going well, result in some nice and quiet fan speeds.

The Xilence logo is lightly embossed to the side of the power supply and while it generally looks good, it isn’t overly clean. It does, again, indicate that some costs have been cut in the overall design of this power supply. At least, in terms of aesthetic presentation.

Cabling

The cabling is both of nice quality and of a decent length meaning that it should be more than suitable for the vast majority of PC chassis designs.

With each cable labeled depending on its specific function, there is also a degree of ‘fool proofing’ in the design. A factor which is always reassuring for the inexperienced PC builder.

Internals – A Look Inside!

Opening up the Xilence Performance A+ III Series, its firstly reassuring to see a generally clean and tidy presentation. There are no masses of cables and everything (at a glance) seems well spaced and organized.

Starting with a closer look of the can, as we can see here, this has not been designed by Xilence. It is, instead, a third-party Chinese component which does tie into the background feeling that a cheaper component/design quality has been used in the Performance A+ III Series.

That being said, a power supply fan has a really basic job and as long as it’s not overly loud, they’re usually never problematic.

While the main PCB looks generally good, it does again speak of some generally inexpensive components. It might sound like a weird or trivial point, but you do some to associate less-expensive manufacturing processes by the overall coloring. Put simply, we see a lot of yellows, reds, and even a bit more exposed copper than we’d usually expect!

We were unable to ascertain the manufacturer of the two main capacitors for this power supply. We would, however, suggest that they are either Chinese or Taiwanese which clearly are (nearly always) not as well designed as their Japanese counterparts. With them both being rated to 105C, however, they do at least appear to be of a decent quality.

Overall Thoughts!

On the whole, the Xilence Performance A+ III Series appears to be a very decent power supply, but with more than a few areas of very moderate concern in terms of the build quality.

It, quite frankly, speaks of a design that has been made to look better than the sum of its parts and while it succeeds in some areas, it fails in others to the more scrutinous eye. The main crux, however, will all boil down to it actually performs. So, let’s see how it handles our testing!