SilverStone Strider Essential 500W

[phoronix]

Phoronix: SilverStone Strider Essential 500W

While we haven't looked at many power supplies lately at Phoronix since it's not exactly an area that has any relation to Linux hardware support, every once in a while we do review them when an interesting review unit comes along. Case in point, what we are reviewing today is the SilverStone Strider Essential 500W. The SilverStone SST-ST50F-ES is a 500 Watt power supply that offers a single 34 Amp +12V rail, a near-silent 120mm fan, ATX 12V 2.3 support, and is backed by Active PFC, but this power supply goes for an incredibly low price.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=14802

[droidhacker]

I really don't see the purpose of reviewing a power supply. At least not without actually doing some tests on it, like checking how it handles input surges or other forms out out-of-spec input conditions, as well as device shorts (is there protection between peripherals? Or can a capacitor explosion on a GPU send a surge that fries the mainboard?). What kind of beatings have you put on it? Have you tested its noise levels against load and ambient temperature? How well does it flow air out of the case?

What kind of capacitors are in it? Anything in it that could potentially explode/fail and take out other parts with it? (I've seen this happen...)

[meklu]

I have this PSU (bought it and the rest of my build on 30th March) and it sure is quiet. Practically all the noise my PC causes is the fault of my GPU.
No problems whatsoever. Sure was worth the €52.
________

Specs:

• Silverstone ST50F-ES 500W (well duh)
• ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO
• HIS HD5770 core @900MHz mem @1300MHz } load, thanks to some PowerPlay(?)
• AMD Athlon II X3 425 @2.84GHz @X4
• Kingston HyperX 2GB 1600MHz CL9 @1680MHz
• Seagate something, 250GB

[Sparkster83]

Wow. Theres nothing wrong with reviewing Silverstone stuff, a site has the right to try to make some money, but man, they way they try to make it look like it's a coincidence...

[lordmozilla]

The point of the review is a little lost on me too, but I bought the 350W model just the other day. Very quiet, however the heatsinks where disturbingly small, I would have prefered them to be a little meatier. I guess the lower end models don't need to be as well cooled, but with bigger heatsinks the fan could spin even less.

I have to say, mouse/keyboard, monitors and powersupply really shouldn't be reviewed unless they're particularly special...

[bridgman]

I think the purpose of the article was along the lines of "I picked up one of these, it seems pretty good, you folks might be interested in it".

Maybe I was the only one who didn't already know about it

[duby229]

The point of the review is a little lost on me too, but I bought the 350W model just the other day. Very quiet, however the heatsinks where disturbingly small, I would have prefered them to be a little meatier. I guess the lower end models don't need to be as well cooled, but with bigger heatsinks the fan could spin even less.

I have to say, mouse/keyboard, monitors and powersupply really shouldn't be reviewed unless they're particularly special...

oh man, I disagree heartily.

There are so many crap power supplies in use today because alot of places dont review them. I agree this article was a little light on data, but at least we got to see some idle vs load data, albeit without knowing how much load.

With a little more information this could have been a real nice review. But I dont mind anyone taking a try at reviewing power supplies. It still provided some good information, and maybe next time we'll get a review with more data.

[rohcQaH]

There are so many crap power supplies in use today because alot of places dont review them.

Because it's difficult to do right, you need more than a bunch of php scripts to test them. Unfortunately the required equipment is expensive, nothing phoronix could (or should) afford.

this article tested voltage. Voltage is pretty meaningless (see here), leaving an article that says "Hey, I bought a PSU! Let me just copy the specs and add a few pictures!".

No tests were done for wattage, efficiency, the different kinds of surge protection or airflow (can you save a chassis fan by mounting a different PSU?).

[Linuxhippy]

please, don't review any more power supplies.

The information you provide is minimal (no efficiency, noise, voltage stability, ... measurements), and its not at all related to Linux/Unix.

- Clemens