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 minimum load on the power supply, the initial power consumption was 16W. This is quite a bit higher in comparison to our recently reported power supplies, such as the NZXT HALE90 750W and SilverStone Strider Plus ST75F-P 750W, tested at 13W for both of them. On the other hand, the power supply does have a 80 Plus Gold rating, so this value is nothing to be of any concern.
The voltages with minimal load are generally accurate and within range. A basic requirement of all good PSUs is to deliver the right voltages through the rails at minimal load, or there could be problems when using it in the first place. The PG (Power Good) measurement is also quite good at 280ms, which is about 20ms less than the average.
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 182W on the SilverStone Strider Gold ST75F-G 750W had the power factor between 0.91 and 0.95. As the load increases to around 200W, the power factor corrects to 0.91, as shown in our photo above.
Finally, in the noise category, the SilverStone Strider Gold ST75F-G 750 ran very quietly, from my subjective observations. The Young Lin DFB132512H pushed out a lofty amount of air, while being near silent as perceived with regards to motor and turbulence noise. I can hear the faint hum of the Young Lin fan as it was running, but any component in a standard PC is more likely than not going to be louder than this fan -- except maybe our Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Kwan's computer, haha. On a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is silent and 10 is the loudest, I would rate the SilverStone Strider Gold ST75F-G 750W to be at 2.0/10 under nominal loads. As the fan spins up, the fan gets increasingly louder, as expected. Personally speaking, the SilverStone Strider Gold ST75F-G 750W is already acoustically sound -- no pun intended -- and should prove to be great for most users in this regard.
SilverStone provided this product to APH Networks to facilitate this report.
The SilverStone Gold ST75F-G 750W power supply is a fully modular package with a large single +12V rail and tight voltage regulation. Being an 80 Plus Gold certified power supply, it is without doubt very efficient; with admirable noise emission control and a sleek exterior to boot.
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Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Minor Tests and Conclusion
