The SilverStone Strider Gold S 1500W PSU Review

Hot Test Results

As it can be seen in the following tables, SilverStone's currently most powerful PSU does offer outstanding power quality, especially if the massive power output is taken into account. The maximum voltage ripple on the 12V line is just 30mV at maximum load, under an outrageous current draw of nearly 110A. Ripple suppression is equally great on the minor voltage lines as well. Voltage regulation is a little more complicated, as the stability of the 12V line is amazing, with a change of less than 1% across the load range. However, the regulation of the 3.3V/5V lines is a lot less tight, at 2%/2.4% respectively.

Once again, we need to mention that this is a PSU rated at 40°C and we perform our testing at temperatures higher than 45°C - we could reduce the ambient temperature of our hotbox testing but we chose not to do so as the results would then not be comparable to those of our previous reviews.

According to these results, it becomes apparent that SilverStone is most likely just playing it safe regarding the 40°C rating for continuous operation. High ambient temperatures had little effect on the performance of the ST1500-GS, reducing its energy conversion efficiency by an average of just 0.3%. The maximum efficiency is reduced to 91.6% at exactly half load.

High temperatures are to be expected from a PSU with this kind of power output and the ST1500-GS does get terribly warm when fully loaded under these conditions. Do note however that the probe that is taking our secondary side readings is now sandwiched between the thermal pad and the chassis (that acts as the main secondary side heatsink), meaning that the readings are naturally higher than with other models. The cooling fan once again follows a "stepping" speed model - the only difference is that now the fan jumps up to maximum RPM at 90% load, correctly abandoning every notion of acoustic comfort to ensure reliability.