SilverStone is known as a manufacture for not only fans, and cases, but power supplies as well. The Element ST50EF 500w PSU is one of SilverStone’s newest PSU’s in their Element Series lineup. The ST50EF produces less wasted heat than typical power supplies and allows the included 120mm fan to operate at very low speeds The ST50EF is geared towards a more efficient power supply. The stable output and efficiency is placed into a eco-friendly housing, and works with almost every ATX casing on the market. Today we have the Element ST50EF 500w PSU to review, which has Active PFC, Dual +12v rails, and more to offer you.

Introduction:
The packaging of the ST50EF looks like every other SilverStone PSU box on the market. SilverStone has kept the packaging the same throughout most of their products. When I opened up the box I seen that the PSU was not wrapped up in bubble wrap, but instead had some kind of plastic film covering on it. I didn’t think that was as secure as some nice bubble wrap, but oh well. Just from first glance at the PSU, the housing looks a little smaller than the usual sized PSU’s on the market, but that’s a good thing. The PSU provides what is needed to power up your computer, but with a smaller housing design which leaves more room for cables and airflow. The housing is colored in a flat black (lead free) finish. Yes it’s not a nice as a mirror finish, but it still looks nice. Included in the design is a silent black 120mm fan to match the housing of the PSU. So far the ST50EF looks like a nice match for a quiet based HTPC, because of the small housing design, and how quiet the fan runs it would be perfect for it. The ST50EF 500w with support for ATX12V 2.2, Dual +12v rails, and Active PFC makes a great choice for a starter PSU.

Silverstone ST50EF 500w Specs:

• Version: ATX12V 2.2
• Chassis: Flat Black (lead free)
• Dual +12v rails
• Efficiency: 80%
• SLI Support: nVidia SLI Certified, and SLI & CrossFire ready
• Silent temperture controlled 120mm fan
• PCI Express 6pin: 2
• SATA Power Lead: 4
• Active PFC
• MTBF: 100,000 hours at 25°C, full load
• Protection: OVP/OPP/OCP/UVP/SCP (Latch Off), OTP (Optional)

Silverstone ST50EF 500w Connectors:

• 20+4 ATX Power Connector
• 4 x SATA drive connectors
• 6 x 4pin drive connectors
• 2 x 6pin PCI Express connectors
• 4pin P4 connectors
• 2 x floppy connectors

Installation:
Installing any power supply is a breeze with only a couple of steps involved. Before starting to install the PSU, turn off your computer completely and disconnect the power cord from the back of the PSU. Uninstall your your old PSU now if you haven’t already done so. Disconnect all the power connectors from the motherboard, and peripheral devices such as fan, drives, etc. Remove the existing power supply from your computer and replace it with the new power supply. Make sure the red power suplly voltage switch is set to the same as you local power voltage. 115v for North America, Japan, etc. and 230v for Europe and many other countries. Connect the power connectors to your motherboard and peripheral devices. 20+4pin connector is used for 24pin ATX/BTX/EPS power connector. Connect the 4pin drive connectors now to your DVD, CD-ROM, and HDD. Connect the SATA connectors to the SATA hard drives if you have some, otherwise don’t worry about them. Connect the 6pin PCI-Express connectors to your PCI-Express video card (if applicable). Close the case up, and connect the power cord to the PSU. Now that all of that is done you have no succesfully installed a new PSU. Turn on your system and you’re good to go.

The ST50EF 500w PSU comes equipped with a lot of protection devices, so your PSU doesn’t burn up. Lets look over a little more info about these features.

• Over Current Protection
  The power supply DC outputs are protected from supplying output current above the maximum ratings and when output power is between 110%~150%. With the exception of the 5VSB output, all DC outputs are latched off on the event of an over-current event on any of the DC outputs. In the event of a short circuit on any output, except the 5VSB rail, all outputs are disabled and remain disabled until the power supply is powered off back on. The 5VSB rail will recover upon removal of the over current condition.
• Over Voltage Protection
  The overvoltage sense circuitry and reference reside in packages that are seperate and distinct from the regulator control circuitry and reference. No single point fault is able to cause a sustained overvoltage condition on any or all outputs. The power supply provives latch-mode overvoltage protection defind as:
  +5v output is between 5.8v to 6.3v
  +12v output is between 14.0v to 17.0v
  +3.3v output is between 3.6v to 4.2v
• Over-power Protection
  The power supply will be shutdown and latch off when output power within 110%~150% of rated DC output.
• Short Circuit Protection
  The power supply DC outputs are protected from damage due to faults, when any output shorts to ground. In the event of a short sircuit on any output, all outputs shall be disabled and remain disable until the power supply is powered off and back on. The 5VSB rail will recover upon removal of the over current condition.
• Active PFC
  The preferable type of PFC is Active Power Factor Correction (Active PFC) since it provides more efficient power frequency. Because Active PFC uses a circuit to correct power factor, Active PFC is able to generate a theoretical power factor of over 95%. Active Power Factor Correction also markedly diminishes total harmonics, automatically corrects for AC input voltage, and is capable of a full range of input voltage. Since Active PFC is the more complex method of Power Factor Correction, it is more expensive to produce an Active PFC power supply.

Having used the ST50EF 500w PSU for weeks now I can say that the everyday operation of the PSU is rather quiet overall. The 120mm fan is controled by the temperture and voltage, so sound can vary depending on the load your system is having at that moment. The noise level minimum is 24 dBA, which is quiet. I haven’t heard the fan get very load at all considering the amount of usage I put on my computer everyday. I used the standard ways of testing the power supply with my multimeter, because I don’t have a better device to test with at this moment. Under everyday use the housing remains very cool, and the PSU very quiet. After testing the voltages on the PSU, I came up with the following numbers below;

SilverStone opted to use a eco-friendly casing, which is a first that i’ve seen for a PC manufacture. It just shows that they do try to care. While the ST50EF might not seem that it can handle a dual core/dual video cards it sure can. Even though this PSU is small in size, it packs a big punch in power. It can handle everything that I have thrown at it. SilverStone didn’t fully sleeve the cables on the ST50EF, like some others in their PSU lineup, but it’s not really all that hard to do yourself. This would have been nice to have fully sleeved cables from the manufacture, but some PSU’s never make it to be fully sleeved or have modular cables. Modular cables are a nice feature to have, but it wouldn’t be that hard to do a mod project and make the cables modular yourself. These are just added features that a lot of us would like to have on our PSU’s, but it’s not nessesary to have it perform well. The ST50EF would be a good all around choice for worldwide use, because it meets or exceeds requirments from UL, TUV, CSA, FCC, and sales in Europe. The ST50EF produces less wasted heat than standard PSU’s on the market, and allows the fan to operate at very low speeds to obtain the silent fan feature set forth by SilverStone. This is just an awesome PSU, at a great price that most people can afford.

Overview:
SilverStone just made a great quality PSU at half the price of most with the same features. Having fully sleeved cables would have been nice, but this PSU isn’t a high end PSU. SilverStone really did a great job of combining all the features they added into a nice smaller sized PSU housing. I thought that maybe the ST50EF wouldn’t perform as well as some of the other high end PSU’s, but it kept up just fine. It does the job that is needed of it, and does it well. It might not be a great PSU for a high end gaming PC, but would be good for a basic-mid range PC, or HTPC. The ST50EF is able to push even the newest dual core/dual video card systems today without any problems. Some manufactures can’t do this even with their most basic PSU, but SilverStone has been around for a while now and knows what the’re doing. It supports the ATX12V 2.2 standard, which everyone is moving to these days. It more appearent with the 20+4 ATX power connector you can find on almost every PSU these days, which supports the ATX/BTX/EPS form factors. The 120mm fan has got to be one of the quietest fans that I have never heard. I swear the noise from just the fan was at a minimum 21dBA, with total noise at a minimum 24dBA under normal use. This is very quiet in fact. My other PSU’s are very loud, and make the bulk of the noise on my systems, but now that I can just add the ST50EF it will cut that noise in half. Mostly every new PSU that comes out now has the dual +12v rails built into the PSU. This feature is nice to have, but it’s becoming a standard thing to have. The Element ST50EF 500w PSU gets a 9 out of a 10, and a Must have Hardware Award.

I would like to further like to thank SilverStone for the review opportunity, and sample Element ST50EF 500w PSU for us to review.

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