Introduction

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



With numerous relevant product lines covering all market segments and every need, the PSU market is obviously very important to Silverstone. Their current flagship series is the Strider Evolution. The Strider Gold S series behind it in the hierarchy covers the mid-market section with four members in-between 550-850 W. All Strider Gold S units feature Gold efficiency, which their naming scheme implies, exploit a fully modular cabling design, and are really small due to their limited length. Silverstone says these units to intentionally be engineered around being the smallest fully modular ATX PSUs at any wattage level, and we have no reason not to believe them.

This review will take a thorough look at the second-strongest Strider Gold S unit with model number ST75F-GS. It has a capacity of 750 W and a single +12V rail that can deliver the unit's full power by itself. Silverstone promises a strict voltage regulation within 3% on all rails, but we even believe its ripple suppression to be better, and there is also talk of low ripple and noise. The unit’s small dimensions didn’t allow for a large fan, so Silverstone went with a 120 mm fan which its specifications on paper say to be quiet enough, but our tests will confirm whether those values are true. The ST75F-GS is compatible with Silverstone's PP05-E short cable kit for use in very small cases, and all its standard cables are also flat, including the 24 pin one, which increases flexibility and makes the cable-management process a lot easier.

Specifications

The unit is 80 Plus Gold certified and comes equipped with all available protection features, including OTP (Over Temperature Protection), which might come in handy since its maximum operating temperature is restricted to 40°C while the ATX spec recommends 50°C. We will still conduct our full load and overload tests at 45°C-46°C to push the unit to its limits and check on how reliable it is.

Like most Silverstone PSUs, this unit is fully modular, and it, thanks to its DC-DC converters, fully supports the new C6 and C7 sleep states that were introduced with Intel's Haswell CPUs. It uses a 120mm fan to keep cool since a larger unit wouldn't fit into this compact unit, which, although it uses a sleeve bearing, is made by Adda, one of the best fan manufacturers.

Contrary to the competition in this price range going with a warranty of five or more years, Silverstone decided to only go with three. We think that they should prolong their warranty if they want to keep in line with the other offers in this category, especially since this PSU's price exceeds 130 bucks, which places the unit right next door to the high-end 750 W category.

The single +12V rail is pretty strong with 62 A maximum current output, which will easily support two high-end VGAs. The minor rails are also very strong for a modern system, and we were happy to see a beefy 5VSB rail (for a 750 W unit) that can deliver 0.5-1 A more than most of the competition's offerings.

Cables & Connectors, Power Distribution

Users have two EPS and four PCIe connectors at their disposal. We know that some incredibly high-end 750 W units offer six PCIe connectors, but think that six is an unrealistic number for this category as it will lead to problems if someones tries to power three high-end VGAs (e.g. three AMD HD7970 or Radeon R9 280X cards) with such a unit. Both EPS connectors are also 4+4 pin, which had us wonder for a moment why Silverstone didn't make one an 8 pin since users will at most need one 4 pin. The answer lies in their length as one is shorter than the other, which allows users to pick the one most suitable to their case. Some will argue here that the shorter of the two EPS cables could cause problems with a server mainboard that has two CPUs, but a user would pick a different, stronger unit to go along with such hardware, or resort to using an extension cord. Replacing the shorter of the two with a longer EPS cable is also an option.

The length of all cables is adequate, although we personally prefer an ATX cable to be close to 600 mm long. The distance between connectors on cables with more than one is good, but should probably be a little shorter between its SATA connectors. All connectors use standard 18AWG gauges.

Since this PSU features a single +12V rail, we do not have anything to comment on about its power distribution.

Packaging

This PSU comes in a medium-sized box with lots of information on it. The front has a brief features list along with the series and capacity descriptions. The 80 Plus Gold badge is located in the bottom-right corner, right next to a photograph of the PSU with the modular panel exposed.


Silverstone emphasizes the PSU's small dimensions and provides a list with its more important features on this side.


The table on this side nicely depicts all available connectors of the 750 W and 650 W Strider Gold S units. As you can see, both units feature exactly the same amount of connectors.


The unit's power specifications table is shown on this side, along with some of the PSU's technical specifications. As Silverstone usually does, there is a sticker with the unit's product version. Our sample is labelled as v1.0.


The back is covered in some interesting graphs and schemes. These depict the efficiency and fan speed curves, show the PSU's compact dimensions, compared to other units with a similar capacity, and portray its black and modular stealth cables.

Contents

The PSU is protected by bubble wrap. We would prefer it if some packing foam were used as well. Silverstone also put both manuals accompanying all of their PSU products into the box, and all modular cables and accessories are inside the compartment next to the PSU.


You will find the modular cables, some Velcro straps, several zip ties, a set of plain fixing bolts and thumb screws, and the AC power cord inside the box.


The two manuals that come with the unit are very informative.