Cooler Master Silent Pro PSUsby Christoph Katzer on September 8, 2008 3:00 AM EST
- Posted in
Efficiency and PFC
The efficiency is good, and with 230VAC it stays above 82% throughout testing. The maximum of 87% efficiency of the 600W unit is better than the 500W model, which only makes it up to 86%. Given the nearly identical design, we were a little surprised to see any differences at all in the efficiency curves. The 500W curves look similar to what we normally see, but the 600W unit is a little odd. It performs extremely well in the first half of the output curve, from a low input of 130W to 400W, but then it drops rapidly and eventually falls into the sub-80% range with 120VAC/90VAC. Normally, we don't see efficiency drop much lower than the initial values. The 600W model still performs better than the 500W unit overall, but it runs optimally in the 130W to ~350W range.
The power factor correction is also a little strange, since it starts at a really low value and stays lower than normal with 230VAC. Lower input voltage means better PFC and the result improves, getting close to .994 which is not bad.