Introduction

We would like to thank Silverstone for supplying the review sample.


If everything goes as planned, we will have NVIDIA's next-gen "Lovelace" GPUs in 2022, which will be power hogs consuming up to 600 W excluding power spikes. The upcoming ATX specification will also include stricter requirements for power supplies, which already has many forward-thinking brands working towards releasing powerful PSUs. SilverStone has already done so with the HELA 2050; as its model number implies, it can deliver up to 2050 W of power with 230 V input. With 115 V input, it is capable of providing 1650 W since standard wall sockets cannot deliver more than 15 A.

The HELA 2050 is a power factory. Still, it is only 180 mm long. A few years ago, 1500 W PSUs were much larger, being up to 220 mm long. However, technology advancements since have allowed for smaller and more efficient designs. Besides vast power, the HELA is among the very few PSUs equipped with a 12-pin PCIe connector. We recently saw 12+4 pin PCIe connectors for the PCIe 5.0 standard, with the four extra pins not transferring power but used as signal lanes. Once the upcoming ATX specification is released, we will know the new PSU requirements, including for the PCIe connectors. This is also the first PSU by Silverstone that is only certified by Cybenetics and not 80 PLUS. It is Platinum rated in efficiency and Standard in noise.

Specifications