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 have to be taken into consideration -- of which certain criteria consists 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're not going to try to BS you 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 4W as measured by our wall meter unit -- indicating that the basic load-free power consumption of the power supply is excellent. This was simply the best we have ever seen; the lowest ever recorded was the PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III 600W, along with a few other lower wattage unit. Independent reviews from websites with professional load testing equipment showed the SilverStone Strider Titanium ST80F-TI 800W delivered excellent efficiency and very good voltage regulation and ripple across all rails. This is an 80 Plus Titanium certified power supply unit.
Voltages with minimal load are generally accurate, which is a basic requirement of power supplies out of the box. In this situation all are within 2%. The PG (Power Good) delay seems to be well within its rated range and general power supply standard of 300ms.
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/S. The ideal value is 1.00, and this is where active PFC comes in. A nominal load of only 70W (8.75%) on the SilverStone Strider Titanium ST80F-TI 800W had the power factor at 0.93. This is excellent, considering many PSUs do not hit 0.99 until at least 25% to 30% load.
The SilverStone Strider Titanium ST80F-TI 800W is fairly quiet power supply, but definitely not the best we have seen. Under regular loads (Less than 300W), the 800W Strider Titanium is reasonably low noise. Personally, I found the HA1225H12F-Z to be pretty good, except you can definitely hear some coarseness in the motor noise at higher speeds. While this is very subjective, I am quite a picky person on noise. On a scale from 0-10 where 0 is silent and 10 is the loudest, I would rate the SilverStone Strider Titanium ST80F-TI 800W to be at 2.0/10 acoustically under nominal loads, because the fan spins really slowly. The fan is out of the way to approximately 70% of its maximum speed, but it will become exponentially more audible when it kicks in. If you are a silent PC enthusiast, the SilverStone Strider Titanium ST80F-TI 800W is still a respectable choice, but the fan motor's smoothness may bother the pickiest.
SilverStone provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
The SilverStone Strider Titanium ST80F-TI 800W is yet another quality power supply from Enhance that delivers great performance according to our affiliates with professional load testing equipment. Not only does it have top notch efficiency even at low loads, it can also fit in tight mITX cases with a depth of only 15cm. The company also lengthened the warranty to five years, which is something I am happy to see. For $180 at press time, there is a price premium to pay for the shiny 80 Plus Titanium badge, but the latest SilverStone Strider has one clear goal: To be the smallest 800W PSU to hold an 80 Plus Titanium certification. And for this, it has met its goal well.
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Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Minor Tests and Conclusion
