Page 3 - Physical Look - Inside
As always, we opened up our SilverStone Strider Gold S ST75F-GS V2.0 750W power supply to take a detailed look at what is going on inside. Please note that doing this at home will void your 3-year warranty, thanks to the warranty seal SilverStone applied over one of the attachment screws. But for the benefit of you, we cracked ours open so you do not need to, haha. There are no user serviceable parts inside.
Disassembling the SilverStone Strider Gold S ST75F-GS V2.0 750W is quite straightforward, with the removal of four screws. Once you take a look inside, however, you will realize the ST75F-GS V2.0 is an entirely different power supply internally. Its OEM is High Power Electronic Co., Ltd, which does not have a reputation as good as Enhance, an OEM SilverStone normally partners up with. Our photo above shows an overhead view of its internal components. At first glance, the build quality appears to be very good. There are two main heatsinks inside, along with one small one attached to the rectifier diode, all of which are painted black.
A quick tug on the shell, and we got straight to the internal inspection. The transient filter stage is the first input stage of a computer power supply, so we will take a look at that first. SilverStone has always done a great job in the past to make sure their power supplies met or exceeded the recommended requirements, and the High Power based ST75F-GS V2.0 is no exception. The SilverStone Strider Gold S ST75F-GS V2.0 750W has two ferrite coils, one metal oxide varistor, two metalized polyester X-capacitors, and four ceramic Y-capacitors. This is two times the amount of X capacitors and Y capacitors than recommended. Considering how many modern day PSUs have missing MOVs, I am happy to see it here, as this component is used to stabilize spikes from the AC line. A Sanken A6069H current mode control PWM regulator IC for controlling standby power can be spotted as well.
On the primary side, we can see one Japanese brand Rubycon capacitor. Japanese brand capacitors are usually what we expect from something in this price range, so this is nothing surprising. Our 750W second revision of SilverStone's Strider Gold S series incorporates one 560µF x 400V capacitor. This unit is rated at 105c; whereas more value oriented power supplies usually use 85c rated capacitors.
The active PFC circuit featured on the SilverStone Strider Gold S ST75F-GS V2.0 750W uses one bridge rectifier attached to a small heatsink, but I could not see any markings on the chip, therefore I cannot say what model it is. Further down the line, on the larger black heatsink, we can see a Cree C3D08060 Silicon Carbide Schottky diode. This rectifier is certified for up to 11A at 135c. Four Infineon IPP50R140CP power MOFSET transistors are used on the active PFC circuit on the SilverStone Strider Gold S power supply. Each Infineon IPP50R140CP MOFSET can deliver up to 15A at 100 degrees Celsius continuously. These transistors present a maximum resistance of 0.14 ohm when turned on; with a typical resistance of 0.13 ohm according to the manufacturer's data sheet. This on characteristic is called Static Drain-Source On-Resistance, or commonly abbreviated as RDS(on). The more efficient the component is, the lower the RDS(on) value, since it wastes less power with lower resistance.
On the secondary side, we can see more Japanese brand capacitors from Nippon Chemi-Con rated at 105c. As with modern high efficiency power supplies, all rectifiers produces the +12V out -- while the +5V and +3.3V outputs are generated from the +12V output using a DC to DC converter within the power supply unit. On the middle add-in printed circuit board is an Infineon ICE2HS01G resonant mode controller for half-bridge LLC resonant converter. On the second add-in board is an ANPEC APW7159 dual channel voltage mode and synchronous PWM controller. Eight Infineon IPD060N03L MOSFETs are responsible for the rectification process. The IPD060N03L's rated continuous drain current is 50A at 100c, and a pulsed drain current of 350A. Drain source voltage is rated at 30V, and a RDS(on) value of only 0.006 ohm maximum and 0.005 ohm typical. Meanwhile, a Silicon Touch PS223 monitoring IC provides the Strider Gold S ST75F-GS V2.0's OVP, UVP, and OCP protection. The datasheets for all components mentioned in this review can be found on their respective manufacturer's websites.
At the back, we have a large daughterboard covering the entire rear panel for the modular cable sockets. There is nothing special going on here electrically; all sockets are connected to the main circuit board after the secondary stage by a bundle of wires. The output connector configuration can be seen on the previous page. Overall, the internal build quality of SilverStone's Strider Gold S ST75F-GS V2.0 750W power supply is pretty good -- something we would expect from what we have seen from the company in the past, even if the OEM is no longer Enhance. Components are arranged pretty well with minimal wires running around inside, albeit space is really tight considering they wanted the shortest PSU possible. Solder points on its black front, green back PCB is not bad, but could be better in general. I would say the SilverStone branded, High Power built ST75F-GS V2.0 is generally very good with regards to the selection of components used under the hood.
Lastly, we see a 120mm fan that provides cooling to the SilverStone Strider Gold S ST75F-GS V2.0 750W's internal components. It is connected to the mainboard using a 2-pin connector. A 120mm fan is rather small nowadays for a power supply with a bottom mounted fan, but if not a lot of heat is being generated, it should not be much of an issue. A 120mm fan is used to keep the enclosure as small as possible, considering the Strider Gold S is only 140mm deep. Globe is the fan OEM, with S1202512L as the model number, as shown in our photo above. Further research indicates the S1202512L is a sleeve bearing fan specified at 0.18A for a maximum of speed of 2000 rpm. The rated airflow is 67.28 CFM at 34.0 dB of noise. It is important to note sleeve bearing fans are generally less reliable than ball bearing fans, especially in an environment with more heat, such as a power supply.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Minor Tests and Conclusion
