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, it is 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 6W as measured by our wall meter unit, indicating that the basic load-free power consumption of the power supply is very good. Independent sources with professional load testing equipment showed the SilverStone HELA 1300R Platinum 1300W delivered very good efficiency for its class and excellent voltage regulation and ripple across all rails. This power supply unit has a Cybenetics ETA Platinum rating.
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 HELA 1300R Platinum 1300W has active PFC, and the power factor will approach 0.99 with a nominal load.
The SilverStone HELA 1300R Platinum 1300W is a silent to reasonably quiet power supply, depending on the amount of power being drawn. Under idle level loads, or less than approximately 20%, the SilverStone HELA 1300R Platinum 1300W is inaudible because the fan can be shut off completely with semi-fanless mode activated. Under moderate loads above 20%, the HELA 1300R Platinum 1300W is reasonably low noise until about 50%, which then becomes quite audible. Personally, I found the Globe Fan S1202512MN to be acceptable at low speed, but gets noisy 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 HELA 1300R Platinum 1300W to be at 0.0/10 when the fan is off, because, well, the fan is off. Above that, I would peg it at 3.5/10 acoustically under moderate loads. This PSU is rated at Cybenetics LAMBDA Standard for noise. If you are a silent PC enthusiast, the SilverStone HELA 1300R Platinum 1300W will fit the bill for loads below 260W, but when the fan kicks in, the profile is pretty aggressive and you will be able to hear it.
SilverStone provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
The SilverStone HELA 1300R Platinum 1300W is a shockingly compact fully modular ATX PSU at only 140mm long, which is about the same size as an average power supply half the wattage rating or less. Impressively, this compact size does not come at the expense of quality or features either. The Sirfa/High Power-built HELA 1300R is Cybenetics ETA Platinum certified and delivers solid power output performance. At the same time, it is ATX 3.0 compliant and PCIe 5.0 compatible to run all your latest components. Inside, we see a good selection of components with 100% Japanese brand capacitors. Of course, there are a couple of compromises. The semi-fanless operation is good only up to 20% or 260W, which is relatively low by 2023 standards. The 120mm fan is also quite aggressive in its fan profile, so you will be able to hear it as the load increases. Lastly, the 5-year warranty is acceptable, but many manufacturers routinely offer 10 years or more nowadays. For about $300 at press time, the SilverStone HELA 1300R Platinum 1300W is very reasonable priced for the power, performance, and features it offers.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Minor Tests and Conclusion
