Silencer MKIII 600W Power Supply

To test the PSU in action in real life we wanted to actually test the PSU in an environment which everyone can recall to. Below is our test rig which we believe is a very modest setup taking into account the Silencer MK3 target clientele. Our testing procedure consisted of first getting voltage readings at system idle and then while on full load using a digital multimeter. In order to simulate high load we ran a couple of benchmark tools such as 3D Mark, SiSoft, PRIME and some games continuously for a couple of hours and taking the average readings.

CPU	Intel Core i7-3960X
Motherboard	MSI X79-GD65
Ram	8GB Gskill Modules
Hard Drive	2 x 300GB Western Digital Velociraptor drives in RAID 0
Graphics Card	2 x ATI X1900 Crossfire
Case Fans	Front (intake): 1 x 120mm case fan
	Rear (exhaust): 1 x 120mm case fan
	Side (intake): 1 x 120mm fan

The main differentiator between a good and bad PSU is that a good PSU will loose it’s efficiency at a very minimal level than a cheaper power supply. Current ATX standard allows for the following voltage variation for each rail in concern:

* 3.3 Volt Rail: 3.135 – 3.465V
* 5 Volt Rail: 4.75V – 5,25V
* 12 Volt Rail: 11.4V – 12.6V

Let us first take a look at the power consumption of the Silencer MKIII 600W while on Idle, while running synthetic benchmarks and finally while gaming as this would be where the PSU would be most stressed.

For comparison sake we used a Tagan 2 Force II 900W and OCZ MOD XSTREAM 780W power supply and ran the same tests and the output of the results are shown below. (Lower scores are better)

As the test show, the Silencer MKIII 600W performs very decently and sticks by the 80% efficiency rating they claim. The MK3 is most efficient however when it’s on around 50% load which is synonymous among most power supplies out there.

Let us now take a look at the individual rails in concern and how well they perform under load.

As we can see, the Silencer MK3 600W works well within the guidelines of the ATX specification which allows a 5% fluctuation even under full load. This is one reason why we should in most cases buy a reputed brand PSU as some generic brands have horrific fluctuations which is certainly not good for your internal components in the long run.

In terms of fan noise, during full load the built in 120mm variable speed fan was producing approx 31 – 35 dBA which is well within tolerable range.