Legit Power Supply Reviews

Silverstone Strider Gold Evolution 750W PSU Review

Manufacturer: SilverStone
Product: SST-ST75F-G Evolution
Date: Mon, Dec 03, 2012 - 12:00 AM
Written By: Emmanouil Filladitakis -
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A look inside the ST75F-G

The cooling fan

Silverstone heavily advertises their own "Air Penetrator" 139mm fan they installed inside the Strider Gold Evolution, claiming that it can enhance the thermal performance of the power supply severely by guiding airflow into a column. This is achieved by the spiraling grid which also doubles as a fan guard and, according to Silverstone's demonstration videos, it does really work. But will air guidance do any good inside a power supply? We will find that out later, during our thermal testing.

Inside the Silverstone Strider Evolution Gold 750W unit

The OEM behind the Silverstone ST75F-G power supply is Enhance and the design is very popular among manufacturers for units of that size. The distinctive feature of this particular design is not the topology or and special features but the very large aluminum heatsinks instead. The manufacturing quality is very good but everything is very tightly packed together, as the heatsinks and the internal cables take a lot of space.

The filtering and rectifying stages

The filtering stage begins at the behind of the A/C receptacle and continues onto the main PCB. We counted four Y capacitors, four X capacitors, two filtering chokes and a MOV; more than enough components for a good filtering stage. There is also a simple glass fuse hidden below the tightly packed components.

Primary side

Two Matsushita 270uF/420V 105°C capacitors can be seen next to a large coil, forming part of the APFC circuit. The active PFC components, two transistors and a diode, are on the main heatsink, alongside the two switching transistors which form the primary side inversion circuit.

Secondary side

Unfortunately, the secondary side is excessively crowded, to the point that one cannot take a proper picture of the design. The synchronous rectifier comprises of four transistors which are installed on the large heatsink. Below the heatsink, two DC to DC conversion boards generate the 3.3V and5V lines. All of the secondary capacitors are supplied by Nippon Chemi-Con, another renowned Japanese manufacturer.  Unfortunately, the design is using cables to bring the power to the vertical PCB which holds the modular connectors, which cables do take a lot of volume inside the unit. 

Secondary side (continued)

Next Page - Test Setup


Review Index
Page 1 - Silverstone Strider Gold Evolution 750W PSU Introduction
Page 2 - Unboxing the ST75F-G
Page 3 - External Design of the ST75F-G
Page 4 - A look inside the ST75F-G
Page 5 - Test Setup
Page 6 - Testing results (Regulation & Ripple)
Page 7 - Testing results (Efficiency, Noise & Thermal)
Page 8 - Conclusion