Supplied by SilverStone Technology

Newcomer Silverstone Tek is more well known for PC
cases but the move to power supplies was a logical choice. The Silverstone
Tek SST-ST46F
460 watt power supply is the latest option for Silverstone Tek consumers. 460
Watts of power more than meets the demand of power hungry systems and Silverstone
Tek has learned from the competition by providing what others don’t. However,
Silverstone Tek may have not learned everything.

Power supply design is a game of pleasing some most of the time and not everyone
all of the time. It’s a balancing act of what the buyer may want, what the buyer
will pay, what the power supply can deliver and how much it will cost to manufacture.
The ultimate power supply would have enough removable leads, emit zero noise,
consistently deliver the required wattage regardless of the demand upon it and
cost around $20. Until the perfect power supply pops into existence the buyer
has a wide variety of choice as manufacturers introduce different lead configurations,
paint schemes, cooling options and trendy effects such as LED fans.

PC users often complain about system instability. It’s assumed that more power
is better but this isn’t necessarily true. For a complete examination and explanation
of power supply specifications, PFC and what to look for read Power
Supplies: The Shocking Truth.

The Silverstone Tek SST-ST46F 460 Watt PSU

Silverstone Tek have gone the way of many with the incorporation of a 120mm.
cooling fan which provides a large amount of air movement at a minimum of noise.

The intake grill is about as porous as it can get allowing for generous airflow.

Massive heatsinks are the name of the game these days. The differences from
manufacturer to manufacturer for design are as subtle and varied as CPU heatsink
designs; each think they have the optimum design. In reality it is a balance
between manufacturing cost and performance.

The heatsinks provide equivalent horizontal surface area to other power supplies
with similarly sized heatsinks but not as much vertical height.

The ADDA AD1212HS-A73GL 120mm. x 120mm. x 25mm. cooling fan draws air from
inside the case. It is capable of 2200 RPM moving a whopping 85.2 CFM at 39.1
dB. Silverstone Tek has cut the voltage to the fan to reduce the RPM to approximately
1100 thus cutting the noise down to 22-26 BA. The SST-ST46F
is not the most silent power supply Short-Media has reviewed but it is very
quiet.

It’s all in the details and Silverstone Tek ensures that the little things
are taken care of such as wires that are not only in sleeves but also shrunk
wrap and cable tied. The ATX line is shown in the following image.

The outstanding feature of the Silverstone Tek SST-ST46F 460 Watt power supply
is the lead configuration. Four SATA connectors (2 per lead), eight 4-pin Molex,
two 3-pin Molex and fan monitoring besides the standard ATA and P4 power leads.
The leads are also the longest of the test group. Some manufacturers do not
include SATA connectors on the leads and some include a 4-pin to SATA connector
in the box but Silverstone got it right especially for EIDE and SATA RAID users.

Silverstone Tek SST-ST46F Specifications

Test System

• AMD 3200+ 400 FSB
  Processor
• Gigabyte
  7NNXP motherboard
• ATI 9800 PRO 256 MB Video
  Card Catalyst 4.2 drivers (Application preference ticked for Anti-Aliasing
  and Anisotropic Filtering in both Direct 3D and OpenGL, VSYNC disabled BIOS
  AGP aperture set to 256)
• 2 x 256 MB Corsair PC3200 DDR RAM in DIMM 1 and 3
• LG 52x CD/RW
• 80 GB Western Digital Hard Drive
• Samsung 950p 19″ Monitors
• USB Keyboard and Optical Mouse
• Globalwin CAK4-76T HSF
• AMK SX1000
  modded PC case (window, fans, cables, loom)
• Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 updated.

The Tests

Tests were monitored by a Fluke 73 Series II multimeter. Readings were taken
on the +3.3, +5 and +12 volt line on the ATX line. Secondary readings were taken
from the +5 and +12 volt lines of a Molex on two separate PSU leads.

Cold start tests were conducted after the system was powered
down for one minute. The lowest voltage was recorded during the process from
boot until WindowsXP was fully loaded.

Operational voltages were recorded after running a two benchmark programs and
a disk defragmenter program. The lowest overall voltage of the three programs
is presented in the database. The lowest voltage was recorded during PC Mark
04 benchmark where all tests were selected and then run. Sisoft Sandra 2004
stress test was executed and the lowest voltage was recorded. (Enable CPU Arithmetic,
CPU Multi-Media, Memory Bandwidth, Cache and Memory, Network/LAN Bandwidth Benchmark)
Microsoft disk defragmenter was executed and the lowest voltage was recorded.

Power factor, kilowatt hours and load and idle watt usage was measured by a
P3 International Kill-a-Watt device. (0.2% accuracy). Aquamark benchmark was
executed at 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024 and 1600×1200 screen resolutions
at four levels of graphic settings: AA off & details low, AA off and details
high, 16x AA & details low and 16x AA & details high. Sisoft Sandra
file system benchmark was run 5 consecutive times on an 80 GB Western Digital
hard drive with 10 partitions. (Floppy and external drive tests disabled.) The
remaining time after programs completed was inactive and results were recorded
after 6.5 hours from beginning of tests. Overclocked: +1 volt on AGP, DIMM and
CPU voltages and FSB set to 210 from 200 MHz.

Silverstone Tek SST-ST46F Observations

3.3 V line

No voltage fluctuations during PC Mark 04. Applications opening produced a
temporary 0.01 volt increase.

5 Volt line

Opening applications produced a 0.01 volt increase. PC Mark 04 produced a 0.02
volt increase over the idle range. GPU load brought the 5 volt line back down
0.02 volts to nominal over the average of 5.08 volts.

12 Volt line

Opening applications produced a 0.02 volt drop and PC Mark averaged a 0.03
volt drop. The 12 volt line produced the most fluctuations over the test period.
During overclocked tests PC Mark04 produced the lowest reading of 11.72 volts.

Specification notes:

The SST-ST46F has an active PFC which bested the Zalman for accuracy at 0.99.
(1.00 is best)

The Silverstone Tek SST-ST46F price taken from Sundial
Micro. CAD funds converted at www.xe.com.

Comparisons

Leads and available power connectors

* Does not include ATX, Accessory, 12 volt or
P2 leads.

Length of leads (Centimeters)

Wattage Comparison (specifications)

The Silverstone Tek PSU is surprisingly less on the +5 and +12 volt rails than
lesser wattage PSUs.

Watt/VA Comparison (KillAWatt)

Peak and idle numbers were provided by the KillAWatt device. The KillAWatt
device also provide kilowatt hours and a power factor rating. Less is always
better. The KillAWatt device monitors the watts used by the system including
volt amperes. KWH usage was obtained after a 6.5 hour testing period. (It’s
about average home usage per session.)

The benefits of an active (or passive) PFC are notable. The SST-ST46F used
comparable KWH to the lesser 400 watt active (Zalman) and passive (SilenX) power
supplies.

Conclusion

The Silverstone Tek
did two things very right with the SST-46F; the leads and the cooling. The leads
are utterly convenient keeping both SATA and EIDE RAID users in mind with well
spaced connectors and two SATA connectors each on separate lines. Silverstone
also did not forget about those ATI video card owners who may require additional
3-pin power. Silverstone also wins the cooling race. The SST-ST46F recorded
the lowest exhaust temperature and the difference from ambient was nearly one
third the competition. The SST-ST46F is a cool customer without the expected
noise. How “silent” is the SST-ST46F? 22-26 BA. is subjective but
chances are the CPU fan may be louder.

The Silverstone
Tek SST-ST46F configuration convenience does not come without a price. It
is the second most expensive power supply in the test group. This, combined
with a 12 volt rail that isn’t 12 volts, will be Silverstone’s Achilles Heal.
Buyers will pay the money but in return they want every bit of voltage and Silverstone
would be wise to get the 12 volt rail in line. The assumption is that a 12 volt
rail which delivers less than 12 volts can potentially be problematic. Let it
be noted that there was zero system instability during all normal and overclocked
tests.

Our thanks to Silverstone
Tek for supporting this and many other review sites.