The SilverStone Strider Gold S 1500W PSU Review
by E. Fylladitakis on April 7, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- PSUs
- SilverStone
- 1500W
Conclusion
The Strider Gold S 1500W may not be the most advanced but it is the most powerful PSU SilverStone currently offers. SilverStone is a company that designs and produces many non-standard cases for HTPC and SFF systems, therefore having a PSU with massive external proportions in their product ranks would not offer the correct synergy. The ST1500-GS is "only" 180mm long - longer than a standard ATX PSU but much more compact than the majority of equally powerful units. However, compactness alone is not enough to win in this segment of the market. Such power is unnecessary for typical HTPC, living room gaming and SFF systems. Virtually no enthusiast would purchase a 1.5kW unit for its external proportions alone and an extremely small number of users would even attempt to compress a system that requires this level of power inside a small chassis.
Regardless of its proportions, the ST1500-GS does match the competition in both quality and performance. The designer of this unit did an outstanding job with the layout, creating a compact and yet a very clean and powerful platform. Despite its relatively small size, they do not cut corners by removing filtering components or using smaller heatsinks. The only exception is the lack of an on/off switch, which would be of considerable size in order to hold such a large input current and apparently the designer decided not to install one at all. SilverStone is using high quality components as well, all coming from very reputable manufacturers. Albeit crude, the assembly quality certainly has room for improvement but it does not cause reliability concerns. Strangely, the warranty period of this unit is, at the very least, unclear. There is no mention of the warranty length on the box or in the web page of the PSU. Only the manual mentions, "Most SilverStone PSUs are covered by a 3 year warranty. For some models the warranty may vary from 1 to 5 years (North America) or 2 to 5 years (EU)". The warranty period should be clearly mentioned on the packaging and online.
In terms of performance, the ST1500-GS does not break any records but does very good overall. It is strange that SilverStone rates this unit for operation at 40°C, as it proved capable of delivering its promised power and performance at much higher temperatures without issues. Most likely, SilverStone is playing it safe, as the power output of this PSU is massive, its proportions are compact and some people may actually install it inside a case not exactly suitable for such monstrous systems. The energy conversion efficiency is good and resists high temperatures well, while the power quality remains excellent even when the internal temperatures of the PSU are very high. As the company promises, the ST1500-GS is also fairly quiet - at least while it is not heavily loaded. This should please the majority of the users, as everyone want their systems to be comfortable when performing casual tasks, such as web browsing or watching a movie, but few would even notice the noise of the system while gaming.
In conclusion, the SilverStone Strider Gold S 1500W is not only compact but also is a high quality PSU that performs very well overall. The ST1500-GS has only one true enemy - its own price tag. With a retail price of $350 including shipping at the time of this review, it is one of the most expensive consumer PSUs in existence. There are several other high performance 1500W PSUs that are considerably cheaper and excellent 1200W PSUs may be purchased for nearly half the price. Even though it truly is a very good product, the price tag of the Strider Gold S 1500W PSU is unquestionably going to limit its sales.
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ShieTar - Thursday, April 9, 2015 - link
The Powercolor Devil13 (2x R9 290X) can pull loads in excess of 450W (and clear excess of the ATX specifications), so a crossfire setup with two of those and an AMD FX-9590 can exceed 1100W on CPU & GPU alone. Add Memory and a bunch of Harddrives, and maybe a dozen electronic gadgets on the USB ports, and you can use the 1500kW in extreme load cases.Not saying you should, an Intel 2011-3 system with two Titan X will give you more gaming power in barely over 600W peak power consumption.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, April 9, 2015 - link
One overclocked 290X hit 400 watts in Tom's testing. It was only a very brief spike, but those spikes should be factored in. So, three of those plus a 9590 and you're talking 1465 watts.jabber - Tuesday, April 7, 2015 - link
Handy review for the three or four that might need this.sweeper765 - Tuesday, April 7, 2015 - link
I would appreciate a different direction from the psu makers.With today's low power systems idling at 15-30W it would make more sense to focus on low load efficiency and smaller total power output, while maintaining the same quality components found in higher powered models.
darkfalz - Tuesday, April 7, 2015 - link
That describes most PSUs actually sold. The one in this review is strictly for e-peen who devote far too much of their income to their PCs.Samus - Tuesday, April 7, 2015 - link
People always overbuild their PSU's. They go for watts over quality. It's a consumer misunderstanding of power requirements and efficiency.Most OEM systems come with ~200-watt PSU's these days. Even high-end workstations like HP Z and Dell Precisions have 280-watt PSU's.
My Xeon workstation with a GTX970 has a 400-watt PSU and my Overclocked i7 SLI gaming PC has a 550-watt PSU, and both have headroom (peak draw from the wall for each under OCCT\furmark is 363-watts and 509-watts.)
I'm not saying a product like this has no reason to exist, but let's just say it's for "the 1%."
DanNeely - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
The most recent 80+ spec, Titantium does focus on low load efficiency by requiring 90% efficiency at a 10% load. For all but the most severe cases of mis-matched system power and PSU size this will bring idle loads for systems with dGPUs into the high efficiency operating range.If OEMs actually refresh their low power models the same should be possible for IGP only boxes; but the negligible number of 80+ units of any size in that range make me suspect we'll be waiting a while for that to happen. Accommodating Haswell's deeper sleep states might push more of them to refresh their designs over the next year or two; but only 9/23 haswell compatable <400W models on newegg are gold certified (none are platinum). However the additional 432 non-haswell certified PSUs in that power bracket make it clear that this is going to be a very slow process. TBH for those systems actual amounts of power saved are small enough that it's only at very high power prices that a high efficiency PSU will pay for itself over a reasonable time horizon. Unless forced by regulators, I wouldn't hold my breath for any significant movement in the small PSU segment.
darkfalz - Tuesday, April 7, 2015 - link
Fools and their money hey... there are some people who purchase merely for the wattage number on the PSU. Says nothing of the quality and even less of the actual requirement. I wonder if this was a hangover from the days where a cheap 300W POS, er PSU would struggle to output 200W without exploding. I peaked 350 watts with a pretty hefty system (GTX 680, overclocked i5-3570K, 2 HDDs). That's 250 watts of headroom from my "low end" 600W PSU. Things might be different in AMD world but Intel/NVIDIA just keep getting more and more PPW.reininop - Tuesday, April 7, 2015 - link
I didn't read the full article, so I may be restating, but for all the people asking what you need 1500W for, the efficiency of these usually peaks at about 50 - 70% of rated power if I remember right. While even a 750 W pull is a pretty hefty system, there might be a slight market for the eco-conscious tech enthusiast...Okay, so maybe the audience is still only about 4 people.
DanNeely - Tuesday, April 7, 2015 - link
You obviously didn't read much if any of the article: You're way off.This is an 80+ gold unit which means that it needs to be >88% efficiency from 20-100% of full load (@220v, >87% at 110). It managed >90, and peaked at 92% efficient at a 50% load.
Sub 70% efficient power supplies are designs from a decade or more ago; and are long gone from the market (possibly excepting some of the sketchiest no-name models); bargain basement 80+ units are widely available now.
Lastly, the power rating is output power, not input. A hypothetical 50% efficient 1500W PSU would still output 1500W of power; it would however draw 3000W at the intake.