Silverstone Strider Essential Gold 600 W – bringing essential to next level

Conclusion and evaluation

The Silverstone Strider Essential Gold 600 W (SST-ST60F-ESG) passed the combined and crossload testing in accordance with the ATX specification, so according to my evaluation methodology, it deserves its evaluation. Unlike the Strider Essential Series, this one was able to pass, that is already strong difference. But otherwise it is not good unit either. As usual, this platform has nice peak efficiency, but somewhat worse low-load efficiency. And as usual, the voltage regulation is mostly bad, especially under crossload scenarios. It is not capable of delivering much power over the nominal, its overpower protection is not working as well as undervoltage protection.

This is simply unacceptable for modern high-end unit!! It also has no overtemperature protection and judging from its behaviour under Sweater contest, I believe this unit has no fan control whatsoever – the fan runs on fixed speed. So the unit may also tend to overheat. At least that it is equipped only with high-quality capacitors which can withstand high temperatures. But the ripple suppresion is also bad in couple of the worst cases (otherwise it would be good, especially for +12 V rail).

This platform is obsolete for high-end, nobody will persuade me otherwise. It continuously shows the same bad behaviour for about four years now without any change. While it may not have been so bad back than, today when even mainstream Channel-Well Technology units have working OCP, OPP and OTP with true DC-DC modules and modular cabling (like last-time reviewed Cooler Master G550M), I wonder why still even new designs like this Strider Essential Gold are still based on this platform.

It is not even that cheap as I have never seen other unit than Raider (cheapest Aurum derivate) being sold for mainstream price. Though we are close this time – if the unit was only 10 % cheaper, it would already be mainstream. Now when is still in high-end, it performs so poorly for this market segment and even three-year warranty and Japanese capacitors will not save it – as it is my requirement for high-end anyway. So why still using this platform? Really.

The value of the Silverstone Strider Essential Gold (SST-ST60F-ESG) as a high-end unit is as follows:

• components used: −6 p. (− for thinner wires, − for lack of gold-plating, − for lack of MOV and thermistor)
• built quality: −5 p. (− for solder balls and messy soldering)
• voltage regulation: −7 p. (− for combined loading, − for crossloading)
• ripple: 0 p. (− for combined loading, − for crossloading)
• efficiency: 13 p. (+ for higher efficiency)
• hold-up time: 16 p. (+ for longer voltage hold-up time)
• others: −7 p. (− for not working OPP, − for not working UVP, + for cable ties, + for good packing)

If we would say the price was 2600 CZK, then the price per value ratio would be 100×4/2600 = 0.15. So after four high-end units, we can see the Silverstone is clearly the worst from all of them.

Pros	+ high efficiency (even under crossload) + reasonable price for high-end + silent (when cooled properly) + good voltage hold-up time
Cons	− terrible voltage regulation, esp. under crossload − below-average ripple suppression − OPP and UVP are not working − no OTP and fan seems to be set to fixed low speed
Be aware of…	/?\ crossloading, overloading and overheating this unit

Thanks

I thank the Silverstone company for providing the Silverstone Strider Essential Gold 600 W unit.

Discussion

Discuss in our forums!

Or select from our donation goals!

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7