Looking for more wattage for your system? Silent Pro Gold 1000W – 80 Plus Gold certified, ultra quiet and SLI/Crossfire ready.
Product on Review: Silent Pro Gold 1000W
Manufacturer and Sponsor: Cooler Master
Street Price: £138.95 inc. VAT (At time of review)
The PSU is the backbone of any system, it delivers the necessary juice to all those high-quality components within the system. Horror stories always emerge about no-frills PSUs blowing and taking components with them. If you spend a lot of money on your system, don’t skimp on the PSU. If anything, you want to invest in a reliable unit to power your system otherwise you could just regret it one day. Cooler Master have long been a stalwart in the division of PSUs. In fact Simon visited their test labs last year revealing how committed they are to the PSU cause. The PSU we are looking at today is not only from a reputable brand, but comes with 80 Plus Gold certification for efficiency and endorses the tranquillity of quiet operation whilst delivering a burly +12v rail, thus making it the ideal PSU for SLI or Crossfire.
Cooler Master’s take on Silent Pro Gold:
High-end computers are getting more and more demanding when it comes to power requirements and these days it’s not good enough to have any old power supply if you’re a demanding gamer or overclocker. The latest top of the range graphics cards from both ATI and Nvidia are demanding more power than ever before and the latest flagship motherboards are equally demanding once you start pushing the limits of your system by overclocking it. The new Silent Pro Gold series from Cooler Master addresses all of these problems while maintaining – or even exceeding – an extraordinary 90 percent power efficiency under load at 220V, which gains it an 80 Plus Gold certification.
Features
* Heat Transfer Technology™: A unique “L-shaped” heat-sink to remove heat from the PSU
* Hybrid Transformer™: Unique design that combines heat-sink with transformer
* Hyper Path™: Places IC close to transformers leading to huge efficiency ratings
* Flat modularized cables provide easy cable management leads to better airflow
* Compliance with the latest Intel standard ATX 12V V2.3
* Operation with intelligent fan speed control
* High reliability (MTBF>100.000 hours)
* Double Layer EMI Filter retrains noise and to avoid affect to users
* Integrating Active PFC with PWM combo controller while increase efficiency
* Multiple protection design (OVP/UVP/OPP/OTP/SCP/OCP)
* Japanese-made capacitors
* Single +12V rail up to 98A
* 5 year warranty
Technical Specifications
Warranty
– Five years
Dimension
– 150mm(W) x 180mm(H) x 86mm(L)
Output Capacity
– 1000W
Maximum Output Capacity
– 1200W
Efficiency
– 90% Gold
ATX Connector 1
EPS Connector 1
PCI-E Connector 8
4 Pin Peripheral Connector 4
SATA Connector 9
Floppy Connector 1
MTBF
– >100,000 hours
Packaging & Bundle
Reflecting the “Gold” efficiency status, Cooler Master present the Silent Pro Gold in a box featuring exactly that colour.
Cooler Master bringing on the bling!
Inside the box we have a number of packaged items. Care has been taken to keep these parts in as best condition as possible during transit. Foam padding is featured throughout the box.
Foam padding when the box is opened
The bundle has a number of additions to it. We have nicely designed envelope with user manual and warranty card inside. Modular cables with modular cables bag for keeping all items together. The PSU itself and a power cable.
Plenty of items within the bundle
Exterior
Our Silent Pro Gold PSU has a very clean look to it. Being dark grey in colour, this will surely coordinate well with a case that has a black interior. The specifications label list all of the rated values for the rails showing that the +12v has single, dedicated line. The actual specifications on CM’s website claim a massive 98A available for +12v but the label says differently. As does the maximum output. 1200W on the website but 1000W on the actual PSU. It’s likely the information on the label is the correct information to follow!
Our unit features a 135mm fan that is categorised as “Ultra Silent”. A little late we will take a closer look at this fan when we open up the unit.
A well presented, clean looking PSU with 135mm “Ultra Silent Fan”
Specifications label showing rail values – Ampage and Wattage
Being modular, the Silent Pro Gold has a selection of sockets for an additional 2 x PCI-E and HDD and peripheral power via SATA/molex. In the next section we will take a look at just what cables are included with the Silent Pro Gold 1000W.
Modular ports for additional cables
Cables
Having a number of hardwired cables and being modular you can appreciate that there are a multitude of cables to take advantage of. Being a 1000W PSU, this is the ‘cream of the crop’ and therefore has every possible option under the sun. Here are the hardwired cables:
– 24-pin ATX (Motherboard) Connector
– 4 x P4 (EATX) cables 2 x 2
– 4 x PCI-E – 2 x 6+2 pin and 2 x 6 pin
Over to the modular cables we have the following:
– 4 x PCI-E – 2 x 6+2 pin and 2 x 6 pin
– 4 x molex peripheral connectors
– 9 x SATA connectors (3 cables with 9 connectors in total)
The above reveals great support for an abundant array of hardware within the system, including multiple GPUs. There is no denying that the Silent Pro Gold has the capabilities here to power a high-end computer system.
Interior
Moving inside for a look at the actual circuitry. Japanese capacitors have been used throughout. These capacitors are known for being higher quality with 105C rating for better stability.
Japanese capacitors – 105C rating
The Silent Pro Gold features “Hybrid Transformer”. In simple terms this means the heatsink is embedded onto the transformer. This reduces the size significantly meaning less heat too. The L-shaped heatsink within the Silent Pro Gold encourages better airflow across components meaning we should get lower operating temperatures.
L-Shaped heatsink for better heat control
Taking a closer look at the fan inside the Silent Pro Gold. We can see that Cooler Master have used a Young Lin Tech Co. DFS132512H. This is a 135mm fan featuring a maximum RPM of 1700 @ 36.28dBA and 91.16CFM. Those who have used the Silverstone Strider series may well recognise this fan as it features in these units too.
Young Lin Tech Co. 135mm fan
Testing Methodologies & Results
Our testing methodology for testing Power Supply Units is limited to the multi-meter to show each rails performance due to us not having access to an ATE load tester. We are making plans to invest in equipment as we were directed by Cooler Master when Simon visited their test labs in June 2010.
Although this does constrain us slightly we can still monitor fluctuations on the rails and give the unit a good assessment when we feature it in one of our builds. The way the testing will run is simple, voltages will be observed at idle wattage and then a single GPU will be installed within the system and a combination of OCCT and MSI Kombustor will be executed to provide simulation with just 1 GPU. This will be run for 10 minutes. After this another graphics card will be added to the system giving the setup a dual GPU configuration and again the stress tests will be applied and after 10 minutes voltages monitored. In both instances the CPU will also be overclocked to maximise power consumption and strain. This should give us a good indication of how the Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1000W will perform under gaming stresses and beyond. This is a severe load test indeed and a good representation of real-world analysis.
System Components
CPU Intel Core i7 920 @ 4GHz
Motherboard ASUS Rampage III Formula X58
Graphics 2 x NVIDIA GTX 480 (SLI)
Memory 12GB Kingston HyperX 1800MHz CL9
HDD 2 x Samsung Spinpoint 500GB SATA-II
PSU Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1000W
I deliberately configured SLI within this test system to give the PSU as much of a draw as it could take. We all know how Fermi is notorious for its big power draw! As I mentioned there is no ATE load tester available so generating as much power as possible is key to observing the fluctuations on the rails.
For voltage tolerance levels, ATX specify that a 5% variable fluctuation is acceptable. (Form Factors – ATX Specification PDF – Page 10). So what this means is:
3.3V Rail – 3.135V – 3.465V acceptable
5V Rail – 4.75V – 5.25V acceptable
12V Rail – 11.4V – 12.6V acceptable
Idle test – The system settles in windows without any applications or stressing. 1 GPU (216W)
Single GPU – OCCT/MSI Kombustor run for 10 minutes (420W)
Dual GPU – SLI is setup for 2 x GTX 480. OCCT/MSI Kombustor run for 10 minutes (753W)
Its always encouraging when we do PSU testing at Vortez that the voltage remains within the ATX standards for tolerance levels. This surely has to be one of the fundamental verifications.
Both 3.3v and 5v rails sustained little fluctuation. Although these rails typically power lower powered peripherals its still good to see very little oscillation. The 3.3v stayed within 0.01v. The 5v stayed within 0.02v. Due to our test being GPU intensive, the rail sustaining most of the action is the +12v rail. So this is the one we really need to pay special attention to. Any major fluctuation could affect performance dramatically. But we have nothing to worry about with the Silent Pro Gold 1000W. Performance is again solid and whilst this rail is sustaining 88% load with our GTX 480s in SLI using MSI Kombustor there is only 0.06v variance between this and idle state. So we can rest assured that under 50% and 88% load, this unit will hold out very well.
Our results speak volumes for the Silent Pro Gold. Not only does the end user get 5 years of warranty but there are no sporadic performance hits. The 135mm fan used within the unit was as Cooler Master claimed “Ultra Silent” even under 88% load it kept within quiet operation.
Conclusion
Often one of the most overlooked components, the PSU should be deemed as the backbone of any system and therefore choosing one carefully is of utmost importance. We’ve all heard of the horror stories some have had when opting for cheap no-frills units to power their system. These lacklustre options can destroy any number of components within a system should they decide to blow. Always trust in a reliable brand, like Cooler Master.
The Silent Pro Gold series has since its inception achieved countless awards for its excellence. As its name suggests it adopts a silent approach to powering the computer with a gold efficiency rating. The 1000W variant we have taken a look at today handled NVIDIA Fermi SLI with no problems whatsoever. In fact it was a breeze!
During the performance tests we pushed the unit to 50% and 88% load, monitoring the voltage fluctuations during this time. The voltages across all rails whilst sustaining this consumption remained within the ATX specifications and furthermore without any real voltage variance. Just 0.06v between idle and SLI state under 88% load.
Being modular, the Silent Pro Gold 1000W brings with it the option of reducing the amount of unwanted cables within the case. What stands out is the sheer number of cable options available. Up to 8 PCIe cable connectors and 9 SATA connectors in total, which by any standard is a phenomenal amount!
Priced at around £138 inc. VAT the Silent Pro Gold 1000W is holds great value for money. Only last week we tested the Corsair TX850 and this was priced around £90-100 and was bronze. Here we are getting a modular unit, gold efficiency and a much stronger +12v rail. Many of the modular gold rated 1000W PSUs on the market are over £150.
We’ve been very impressed by the Silent Pro Gold 1000W. It comes with an appealing 5 year warranty and is a great value for money option if you are going to SLI/Crossfire and have plenty of power hungry components within your rig. The Silent Pro Gold 1000W comes highly recommended by Vortez.
Pros
+ Excellent performance under 50% and 88%
+ “Ultra Silent” holds to its claims
+ Good value for money modular, gold rated 1000W PSU
+ Extended 5 year warranty
+ Lots of additional cable options
Cons
– None to state
+ Excellent performance under 50% and 88%
+ “Ultra Silent” holds to its claims
+ Good value for money modular, gold rated 1000W PSU
+ Extended 5 year warranty
+ Lots of additional cable options
Cons
– None to state
