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Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 800W

by on04 June 2010

 
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Review: 80 PLUS Gold certificate


We've seen Cooler Master's Silent Pro Gold power supply units on this year's CEBIT, and we must say we liked what we saw as these come with the 80 PLUS Gold certificate. This means that these PSUs come with over 90% efficiency under a 50% workload. Silent Pro Gold series combines a few technologies, like Hyper Path, Hybrid Transformers and HTT, which are in charge of regulation and energy transfer. Cooler Master was pretty openly discussing these as they helped in acquiring the 80 Plus Gold certificate.

Silent Pro Gold series features 600W, 700W, 800W, 900W, 1000W and 1200W power supply units. The top two models come with a 14cm whereas the rest feature a 12cm fan. We received the RS-800-80GA-D3 model rated at 800W and which, according to 80Plus.org data, boasts 91.52% efficiency under a 50% workload.

 On the back of the box which Cooler Master used to ship us the PSU we found two graphs -  one of which shows the fan loudness at various load levels. The aforementioned graph shows that when under 50% load, the PSU is pretty quiet (about 21 dBA) and a 75% load still keeps the noise below 30 dBA. Still, we’re yet to see whether the 12cm fan is capable of running quiet.

Note that Silent Pro series features modular design with flat modular cables, which are pretty practical as they’re more flexible than standard cables.




Packaging

Silent Pro Gold 800W is one of the largest packages we've seen for PSUs.

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As you can see, there's a lot of unused space within the box, but Cooler Master seems to have gone along the „size matters“ route.

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The user's manual reveals that the new Silent Pro Gold series features 6 different PSUs, starting from 600W all the way to 1200W.

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Silent Pro Gold 800W features modular design and all the cables are packed in a black bag, except of course for the must-have cables – the motherboard 20+4 pin one, the CPU 4+4 pin one and the PCI-e 6+2 pin one.

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All modular cables feature flat design, which makes them more flexible than regular cables.





Closer look at Silet Pro 800W Gold

Silent Pro Gold 800W is a standard sized PSU which will fit in all regular cases. Note that Silent Pro Gold 1000W and 1200W models are larger than the rest of the offer and measure 150 x 180 x 86 mm.

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The metal surface of the Silent Pro 800W Gold features nice finish and won't catch dust and prints. You'll find the 12cm fan mounted on the bottom.

 

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All Silent Pro Gold PSUs come with modular design.

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The power supply comes with the motherboard cable (20+4 pin), the CPU cable (4+4 pin) and the PCI-e (6+2 pin) cable whereas the rest is optional and dependent on your requirements.

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Two PCI-e cables are modular whereas the third is coming directly from the PSU. Each of the three PCI-e cables features two connectors at the end, one 6+2 pin as well as a 6-pin connector. This means that Tri-SLI is possible, but the 800W limit means that you might want to stick to mid-range graphics cards. Modular cables come with flat design, making cable management much, much easier.

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CoolerMaster lists a few technologies as being key to efficiency and stable operation of Silent Pro Gold series:

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HTT stands for Heat Transfer technology, which is a heatsink with a patented “L” design. This technology helps to guide the air flow along the heat sink to improve the air circulation for maximum performance at low temperature.

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Hybrid Transformer is actually a hybrid – call it a heatsink-meets-transformer. Compared to traditional transformers, size was reduced by up to 25% providing lesser energy consumption, while conducting heat for better overall efficiency.

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Hyper Path energy conversion path is a efficient interconnect between the transformer and the components inside the PSU which further helps to improve the power efficiency by reducing internal power loss. It places IC close to transformers leading to huge efficiency ratings.

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Silent Pro 800 W features a single 12V rail with 65W.

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Testing

Silent Pro 800W Gold is the latest PSU to come out of Cooler Master. It comes with 80 PLUS Gold certificate, meaning that it's efficient and won't waste energy. Unfortunately, we don't own professional PSU testing equipment, so we'll have to rely on 80plus.org's data. The following grapih, as you can see, shows that the efficiency is always around 90%. You can find out more here.

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In absence of such equipment, we decided to perform a few practical tests which have proven that this is a quality PSU. In our first test, we measured total system consumption. The rig runs on EVGA's 3xSLI motherboard, Core i7 965 Extreme and two GTX 470 reference cards in SLI. We used Prime95 to stress the CPU and FurMark to stress the graphics cards. 

Under full CPU and graphics card load, Silent Pro 800W Gold ran like a charm. Maximum consumption was 710W. Note that Silent Pro 800W showed superior efficiency when compared to the older but more powerful Cooler Master UPC 1100W. Note however, that the UPC 1100W doesn't come with 80 PLUS Gold certificate.
 
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Although using two GTX 470 cards in SLI is the maximum we'd recommend in case of Silent Pro 800W, we decided to use two GTX 480, just for kicks. Surprisingly enough, Prime95 and FurMark ran like a charm but our rig drew up to 876W. The only problem was how to cool two GTX 480 cards in SLI, as the GPU temperatures on the first card constantly hit 100°C.

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Before we move onto the conclusion, we must say a few words about the fan. Although this is a 12cm fan, which can make some serious noise, idle operation was as quiet as it gets. It got a bit louder in scenarios where the PSU utilization was over 50%, but it's still far from what we'd call loud.





Conclusion

Cooler Master officially announced its Silent Pro Gold series of PSUs, and all of them come with 80 PLUS Gold certificate. The series consists of 6 models ranging from 600W up to 1200W and apart from high efficiency, the new series has a couple of new features. The HTT (heat transform technology) circuit layout improves thermals, while hybrid transformers reduce size by 25% and combine the heatsink with the transformer and Hyper path provides a link between IC and relative components. In addition, Active Power Factor Correction on all models, with a power factor 0.99 helps reduce electrical waste and further increases efficiency.

Note that only the 1200W and 1000W PSUs have a 135 mm fan (PSU dimension 150x180x86mm), while 900W, 800W, 700W and 600W (PSU dimension  150x160x86mm) feature a silent 120 mm fan. Efficiency is rated at more than 90% and all PSUs come with a single fat +12V rail up to 98A.

The outstanding efficiency of the Gold series was demonstrated at CEBIT, when Cooler Master compared Silent Pro 800W Gold to an unbranded PSU. What we saw was up to 20W difference between the two, and today we’ve made sure ourselves that Silent Pro Gold series is one mean line of products.

If you’re looking for quality PSU to power a rig featuring one high-end graphics card, such as GTX 480 or Radeon HD 5870, then you’ll really like Silent Pro 800W Gold. However, if you’re looking to add SLI or CrossFire to your rig, you’ll probably have to reach for the more powerful models in the Silent Pro Gold series. As for our today’s sample, the Silent Pro 800W Gold is efficient and we have no choice but to recommend it.    

Cooler Master Silent Pro 800W Gold PSU's suggested pricing stands at €125.97 (VAT excluded), street prices are around €145,-.

 

Last modified on 24 September 2010
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