Page 4 - Minor Tests and Conclusion
Power supplies are interesting products, because often, reviews of products in this category are conducted and tested in methods that make it difficult to distinguish one power supply from another. Many aspects must be taken into consideration. Certain criteria consist of efficiency, noise, power ripples, and of course the ability to pull out the rated specifications. Because many cannot afford such equipment to obtain results regarding those aspects, articles covering power supplies often come out with less than adequate and acceptable information. As this is a product report -- not a review -- what we are doing is a close examination of the power supply and the internal hardware and build. But what we can do for you is do some minor testing with the results we can present to you with and let other review sites with professional equipment show you the actual test results. We are not going to try to create useless test results by installing the power supply into the latest gaming rig and try to take readings from that, as this is not even remotely the correct way to test power supply units. We understand that many websites do that as a means of load testing, but the results, even if you use an oscilloscope and multimeter at each output location, are not sufficient, nor does it accurately reflect the performance of the power supply.
Using our power supply tester which exerts minimal load on the power supply, the initial consumption was 5W as measured by our wall meter unit, indicating that the basic load-free power consumption of the power supply is excellent. There are no independent sources with professional load testing equipment done on the SilverStone DA850R Gold 850W at press time. This power supply unit has an 80 Plus Gold rating, but has no Cybenetics ETA certification at the time of writing this review.
Voltages with minimal load are accurate, which is a basic requirement of power supplies out of the box. This power supply is ATX 3.0 compliant and officially supports Alternative Sleep Mode with 100 to 150ms PG specifications, so it looks like the PSU tester I used was not fast enough to pick up the true PG signal. The ATX design specifications state a PSU's PG is required to be between 100ms and 500ms, with 250ms maximum for Non-Alternative Sleep Mode and 150ms for Alternative Sleep Mode.
Active power correction is important to correct AC load line loss. In AC power, there are three components to it, as there is a phase difference between current and voltage. This makes up the power triangle, which consists of the following: Average usable power (P, measured in watts), reactive power (Q, denoted as VA-R), and total power (S, written as VA). While they all have the same physical units, it is not the same thing as aforementioned. What we want is the average usable power with as little wasted reactive power as possible. The total power provided over the AC line is the magnitude of the two combined (sqrt(P^2+Q^2)). Power factor can then be easily calculated by P divided by S. The ideal value is 1.00, and this is where active PFC comes in. The SilverStone DA850R Gold 850W has active PFC, and the power factor will approach 0.99 with a nominal load.
The SilverStone DA850R Gold 850W is a silent to reasonably quiet power supply, depending on the amount of power being drawn. Under idle level loads, or less than approximately 40%, the SilverStone DA850R Gold 850W is inaudible because the fan can be shut off completely with semi-fanless mode activated. Under moderate loads above 40%, the DA850R Gold 850W is reasonably low noise to about 80%, which then becomes quite audible. Personally, I found the Poweryear PY-1225H12S to be acceptable at low speed, but gets audible at high speed. While this is very subjective, I am quite a picky person on noise. On a scale from 0 to 10 where 0 is silent and 10 is the loudest, I would rate the SilverStone DA850R Gold 850W to be at 0.0/10 when the fan is off, because, well, the fan is off. Above that, I would peg it at 2.0/10 acoustically under moderate loads. This PSU is not Cybenetics rated for noise. If you are a silent PC enthusiast, the SilverStone DA850R Gold 850W will fit the bill for loads below 340W, and the fan curve profile is pretty conservative to keep the fan speed in check until 680W.
SilverStone provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
The SilverStone DA850R Gold 850W is a compact fully modular ATX PSU at only 140mm long with 80 Plus Gold certification at a competitive price. This Andyson-built PSU ATX 3.0 compliant and PCIe 5.0 compatible to run all your latest components. The conservative fan profile with fanless operation up to 40% of the load will appeal to those who appreciate a little more silence in their life. However, the budget nature of this power supply is revealed when you look inside, where you will find nothing but Chinese or Taiwanese-sourced budget components. We do not know the performance characteristics of the DA850R Gold 850W, since there are no publicly available third party test results at press time. Furthermore, the 3-year warranty is acceptable, but is shorter than the industry standard of 5 to 10 years for mainstream PSUs nowadays. For about $110 at press time, the SilverStone DA850R Gold 850W offers good value for your money.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Minor Tests and Conclusion
