![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Wednesday, July 08, 2009
- Author:
- Paul Johnson
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
SilverStone Element 700W Power Supply
SilverStone promises higher efficiencies, lower exhaust temperatures, and silent operation in the difficult 700 watt computer power supply market with its Element 700W PSU. SilverStone has awed us in the past, but does the company known for some of the best quiet PSUs pull it off with this Element.
Overview
The first thing we are going to look at with the SilverStone Element 700W is the packaging, accessories, and documentation. While normally none of these items is a make or break item for a power supply the packaging quite often contains a lot of information about the product we are purchasing. The inclusion of an owner’s manual that provides actual information about our product is also of great help. Accessories are almost unnecessary with a power supply as the unit is self contained, unless it is modular, but there cases where a manufacturer can include useful accessories to make installation, routing and use more efficient.
The SilverStone Element 700W packaging fits the general layout of previous SilverStone offerings and it provides us with the same basic information about this unit and a bunch of marketing. Included for your viewing pleasure are the power table (shown below), connector count (shown below), and a large emphasis on efficiency which includes an 80Plus Silver sticker along with the memorable marketing speak "High efficiency PSU’s to save electricity and more" (what the more is, is not disclosed) and a promise of 85% to 90% efficiency. A quick check of the 80Plus website finds the Element 700W is indeed listed for 80Plus Silver which means we get a presumptive 85%-88%-85% efficiency range at 20%-50%-100% loading. Interestingly, while a number of 700W units are certified for various mutli-gpu flavors the Element 700W is not at the time of writing. Lastly, while not listed on the packaging, but listed on the SilverStone website (and the manual) the warranty for this unit runs 3 years. As we have said before about SilverStone’s 3 year warranty, it is not horrible but 3 years is certainly on the shorter side of the spectrum for what we would ideally like to see in a high end power supply such as this.
As we see from the power information above, the SilverStone Element is one of the more interesting 700W units we have seen to date. The Element 700W comes with five 12v rails, and that is the most I can remember seeing to date on a 700W unit, or even any unit below 900W). The arrangement of these rails however, seems sufficiently balanced and provides a total 12v total capacity of 56A or ~96% of total capacity. Each of these 12v rails is supposedly limited to 18A. I say "supposedly" because the user manual for the Element 700W lists the OCP settings for these 12v rails as being significantly higher than this 18A figure found on the label. While the unit is generally well balanced, there is one rail of concern and that is 12v5. 12v5 has allocated to it two 6-pin PCI-Express connectors and one 8-pin PCI-Express connector. The problem here is if these connectors are fully utilized they could in theory draw a total of 300W or 25A, however this eventuality does seem likely. Lastly, we find that the Element 700W is sporting a total of six Molex connectors for peripherals and six SATA connectors for your smaller RAID arrays.
Once we open the unit’s packaging we find that the box includes the unit, power cord, mounting screws, and user manuals. Did I just say manuals? Yes I did. The big thick black one pictured is a multi-language generic installation diagram and pinout guide along with the warranty information, which is very thorough on the warranty front although it does not list the length of the warranty. The thinner white manual however, is specific for this unit and is exceptionally complete with just about every electrical specification for the unit that is available. Again, the only thing missing is the warranty information (you can still find the information about the 3 year warranty here) and like previous SilverStone manuals it does provide the place that must be signed by the salesperson at the time of purchase for the warranty to be valid. As is seemingly customary with SilverStone units in our reviews, the excellent documentation continues to lack the complete warranty information.