Our testing methodology for testing Power Supply Units is limited to the multi-meter to show each rails performance due to us not having access to an ATE load tester. We are making plans to invest in equipment as we were directed by Cooler Master when Simon visited their test labs in June 2010.

Although this does constrain us slightly we can still monitor fluctuations on the rails and give the unit a good assessment when we feature it in one of our builds. The way the testing will run is simple, voltages will be observed at idle wattage and then a single GPU will be installed within the system and a combination of OCCT and MSI Kombustor will be executed to provide simulation with just 1 GPU. This will be run for 10 minutes. After this another graphics card will be added to the system giving the setup a dual GPU configuration and again the stress tests will be applied and after 10 minutes voltages monitored. In both instances the CPU will also be overclocked to maximise power consumption and strain. This should give us a good indication of how the Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1000W will perform under gaming stresses and beyond. This is a severe load test indeed and a good representation of real-world analysis.



System Components
CPU Intel Core i7 920 @ 4GHz
Motherboard ASUS Rampage III Formula X58
Graphics 2 x NVIDIA GTX 480 (SLI)
Memory 12GB Kingston HyperX 1800MHz CL9
HDD 2 x Samsung Spinpoint 500GB SATA-II
PSU Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1000W

I deliberately configured SLI within this test system to give the PSU as much of a draw as it could take. We all know how Fermi is notorious for its big power draw! As I mentioned there is no ATE load tester available so generating as much power as possible is key to observing the fluctuations on the rails.

For voltage tolerance levels, ATX specify that a 5% variable fluctuation is acceptable. (Form Factors - ATX Specification PDF - Page 10). So what this means is:

3.3V Rail - 3.135V - 3.465V acceptable
5V Rail - 4.75V – 5.25V acceptable
12V Rail - 11.4V – 12.6V acceptable

Idle test - The system settles in windows without any applications or stressing. 1 GPU (216W)
Single GPU - OCCT/MSI Kombustor run for 10 minutes (420W)
Dual GPU - SLI is setup for 2 x GTX 480. OCCT/MSI Kombustor run for 10 minutes (753W)



Its always encouraging when we do PSU testing at Vortez that the voltage remains within the ATX standards for tolerance levels. This surely has to be one of the fundamental verifications.

Both 3.3v and 5v rails sustained little fluctuation. Although these rails typically power lower powered peripherals its still good to see very little oscillation. The 3.3v stayed within 0.01v. The 5v stayed within 0.02v. Due to our test being GPU intensive, the rail sustaining most of the action is the +12v rail. So this is the one we really need to pay special attention to. Any major fluctuation could affect performance dramatically. But we have nothing to worry about with the Silent Pro Gold 1000W. Performance is again solid and whilst this rail is sustaining 88% load with our GTX 480s in SLI using MSI Kombustor there is only 0.06v variance between this and idle state. So we can rest assured that under 50% and 88% load, this unit will hold out very well.

Our results speak volumes for the Silent Pro Gold. Not only does the end user get 5 years of warranty but there are no sporadic performance hits. The 135mm fan used within the unit was as Cooler Master claimed "Ultra Silent" even under 88% load it kept within quiet operation.