In recent months 700 to 1000 watt monsters have been stealing the spotlight on the power supply stage. Many people may think the time of the 500 watt unit has come and gone, but that is just not the case. Believe it or not, 500 watt units can still hold their own and perform just fine on most systems, even some systems that many enthusiasts consider high end. Yeah, if you are running a quad processor, with six hard drives and two 8800GTX's in SLI, then you are going to want to pick up a PSU with a "few" more watts. But how many people do you know that have power sucking rigs like that? Or an even better question: How is this 500 watt unit going to hold up in an average enthusiast system? Follow along with us to find out...
| Model |
|
| Max DC Output |
|
| PFC |
|
| Weight |
|
| Dimensions |
- 150mm (W) x 86mm (H) x 140mm (D)
|
| Efficiency |
|
| Noise Level |
|
| Cooling |
|
| MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) |
- 100,000 hours at 25C, full load
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| Operating Temperature |
|
| Protection |
- Over Current/Voltage
Short Circuit
No load operation |
Not a huge bundle to speak of, but par for the course when dealing with PSU bundles. If they did add something nice we, would be concerned that maybe the PSU wouldn't live up to expectations. Our main concern is that the PSU is going to do its job and do it well.
On the side of the ST50EF-Plus we take a peek at how the power is divided among the different lines. Top notch power supplies are known for putting the bulk of their wattage in the 12 volt line(s) and the ST50EF-Plus is no different. Budget power supplies, on the other hand, overload the 3.3 and 5 volt lines, essentially leaving much of their 'claimed' wattage untapped. The ST50EF-Plus limits the 3.3 and 5 volts lines to 150 watts maximum. The two 12 volt lines max out at 432 watts, with a respectable 18 amps per line.
COOLING AND CABLING
JUST PICK IT UP! Even quicker than looking at the specs, the easiest and quickest way to determine the quality of a PSU is to lift it up and see how heavy it is. This is not a guaranteed method, but it is generally effective, and of course simple. Why is this the case? Because the high end PSU components inside tend to weigh more. PSU companies will not only add those high end components, but some additional heat spreading metal to help keep the PSU performing stable by keeping the temperature reasonable. The ST50EF-Plus is no light-weight, so as we look forward to the testing, we expect great things. The included 120mm fan looks like it will be able to do its job, but how quiet will it be?
Silverstone included plenty of connectors to keep almost any enthusiast happy with the common 24 pin and 8 pin mobo connectors, six SATA connectors, six molex (4pin) connectors and two floppy 4pin connectors. They also include two 6-pin PCI-E connectors. These two PCI-e connectors get their juice from each of the independent 12 volt lines. Unfortunately, all the 4-pin and SATA cables do not come sheathed, making cable management a little more of a task. Silverstone also has a version of the ST50EF-Plus with shorter cables (ST50EF-Plus SC) for those with small form factor enclosures.
TESTING METHODOLOGY
Here at HardwareLogic, we strive to provide our readers with accurate and real-world results of every component we put through the wringer. This philosophy presents a challenge when testing power supplies of increasing size, as it would take one monster of a test bed to flex the capabilities of these big watt behemoths. It's simply not enough to hook up a high end system, record the voltages, and praise a PSU afterwards.
Good News and Bad News... Let's start with the good. We are extremely excited to announce that we recently acquired the high-end testing units we need to truly allow us to tests the limits of any power supply that comes across our desks for review. There are very few review sites that have testing units that are comparable (with SilentPCReview and JonnyGuru being a couple of our favorites).
The bad news is that the units were not yet ready for use at the time of testing this ST50EF-Plus. While we wish we could have used the new testing units during this review, we are pleased to say that in the near future we will be replacing our old tried-and-true method with our new power supply testing units.
In the meantime, we'll be conducting our power supply reviews in the most real world way possible, despite the limitations of such testing. This means outfitting our testbed with a reasonable system that might be used for such a power supply, increasing the voltages, and overclocking our processor to simulate the computing habits of enthusiasts. Our testbed today consists of the following components:
| Processor |
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| Motherboard |
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| RAM |
- 2x512MB (1GB) OCZ DDR2 800
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| Videocard |
|
| Hard Drive |
|
TEST RESULTS
Our testing today focuses on measuring the +12V, +5V, and +3.3V rails both at idle and with a full system load. We then take a second set of measurements after overclocking our processor to 4.05GHz (up from 3.0GHz at stock), increasing the vCore to 1.45V from 1.30V, overclocking our RAM from 800mhz to 900mhz, and increasing our RAM's voltage to 2.15V from 1.9V. The ATX specification allows a 5% variance in either direction, so we'll be looking to make sure our unit is not in danger of running out of spec. Equally important, if not more so, is whether or not these rails remain stable or have a tendency to jump around. In other words, do they provide clean power? For example, we'd much rather have a power supply whose +12V rail remains at a constant 11.90V (well within the 5% variance allowed) over one that measures +12V on the nose but repeatedly fluctuates all over the place.
| |
Stock Idle |
Stock Load |
Idle OC'd |
Load OC'd |
| +12V1 |
11.95 |
11.94 |
11.94 |
11.93 |
| +12V2 |
11.96 |
11.95 |
11.95 |
11.93 |
| +5V |
4.93 |
4.93 |
4.93 |
4.92 |
| +3.3V |
3.32 |
3.32 |
3.32 |
3.32 |
The results we measured with our multimeter were phenomenal. All four lines were well within the ATX specifications, while at stock and overclocked. Amazingly, the most we saw was a .01V fluctuation while at idle or load during any of our testing. We would like to mention again that we were not able to run this PSU through the gauntlet of tests, but despite this limitation, we're still running a real system outfitted with a juice-sucking graphics card while running a fairly aggressive overclock, and the ST50EF-Plus refused to flinch. There may be some underlying ripple going on, but at the end of the day, our system remained stable, the power supply's fan ran quiet, and none of the rails ever gave us any indication that we should be concerned. In fact, we were stunned with how tight the rails ran.
| Segment |
Score |
Comments |
|
Feature-set |
8/10
|
- Active PFC
- Easy-release Molex connectors
- 80%+ efficiency
|
|
Cables & Connections
|
16/20
|
- Plenty of cable connectors, including six SATA and six 4-pin Molex
- Includes 2 6-pin PCI-E cables
- Black sheathing on some cables, none on the SATA and 4-pin cables
- Not modular
- No quick-release molex connectors
|
|
Power |
17/20
|
- Obviously overshadowed by units coming out that are twice as beefy
- Two reasonable 18 amp 12 volt lines
- SLI and Crossfire ready
|
|
Performance |
20/20
|
- Rock solid test results on our modest test bench
|
|
Cooling & Noise
|
10/10
|
- The 120mm remained quiet during testing
- Standard honeycomb rear grill present
|
|
Warranty & Support
|
9/10
|
- Backed by a three year warranty, though we've seen five year and even lifetime warranties start to enter the marketplace
- SilverStone's Contact Page contains various points of contact for support, as well as a downloadable RMA form which can be FAXed back to expedite the RMA process
|
|
Price / Value
|
9/10
|
- Streets for $100 on Newegg
|
Our Recommendation
Some may say the time for 500 watt power supplies have come and gone. We will agree that they are clearly not in the spotlight anymore; 500 watt units such as this ST50EF-Plus still clearly have their place in the power supply world. While we would never put a 500 watt PSU in a loaded system with a quad-core CPU, two 8800GTX video cards and six SATA devices, you may still be surprised at what a PSU like this can handle. For the modest enthusiast with a C2D processor, a 7XXX series video card, a couple hard drives and half dozen LED case fans, a 500 watt PSU would be right up your alley, especially if you looking at the bang-for-the-buck value. This is particularly true if you get you hands on a power supply like the ST50EF-Plus that runs like a champ.
We won't see many better 500 watt units on the market able to out-perform what Silverstone has under the hood. However, Silverstone could have added a couple little cabling extras to make this irresistible. To start with we would have like to seen the black sheathing on all the wires and in between connectors. This would help with cable management and also would give the interior of a case a more uniform look. Adding quick-release molex connectors would have also been a nice option for those that regularly swap out components. The only other thing that would have topped this off would be making the cables modular, but hey, we've been picky enough.
Overall, for an enthusiast with a middle-of-the-road system, this ST50EF-Plus could be just what you need until you finally complete that quad-core dream system down the line.
Other Reviews of Note
It's always nice to have more than one opinion on a component before you spend your hard earned money. For one, we may see something others missed, or vice versa. As with all reviews published at HardwareLogic, we'll not only give you our recommendation, but also point out some reviews from some other great sites from around the web.
