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 8W. Measured using our wall meter, this basic load-free power consumption of the SilverStone Strider Gold ST65F-G 650W is among the lowest we have seen at APH Networks. When compared with other PSU in the same weight division, namely FSP AURUM CM Gold 650W, it compares quite favorably.
Voltages with minimal load are generally accurate, which is a basic requirement of power supplies out of the box. In this situation, they are all within 2.5%. The PG (Power Good) delay seems to be well within its rated range and general power supply standard of 250ms.
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, the SilverStone Strider Gold ST65F-G 650W had the power factor of 0.96. This indicates that the active PFC circuit is working well.
The SilverStone Strider Gold ST65F-G 650W is hardly audible during normal operation. As mentioned on the previous page, under 60% load, the fan speed remains consistently at around 900 RPM. On a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is dead silent, and 10 is the loudest, I would rate the audible to be at 2.5/10 acoustically under nominal loads.
SilverStone provided this product to APH Networks to facilitate this report.
Being a power supply that falls within the 500W to 700W range, it has many natural competitors. SilverStone alone has five products within this wattage specification. To stand out within this saturated market is no easy task. The SilverStone Strider Gold ST65F-G 650W manages to do so with an 80 Plus Gold certification and 100% fully modular design; all in a small package for tight case interiors such as HTPCs. The only downside is the steep price tag, but as they always say, you pay for what you get.
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Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Minor Tests and Conclusion
