Silverstone Strider Titanium 600 W (SST-ST60F-TI) review

Conclusion and evaluation

The Silverstone Strider Titanium 600 W (SST-ST60F-TI) passed the combined and crossload testing in accordance with the ATX specification (mostly), so according to my evaluation methodology, it is deserving of its evaluation. I must admit that I have very mixed feelings about this unit. Being of Enhance Electronics origin, I expected nothing but the best quality, especially for the price. But this is not the case, and as many other units, the result is somewhat mixed. The unit has great ripple suppression, one of the best I have seen (besides the −12V rail though). The efficiency is also good, though even with my current setup I can tell that the unit barely passes Titanium certification and it is even comparable to some platinum units. Clearly, pushing the efficiency rating to accommodate low power output is a difficult task. But the unit seems to pass so Silverstone can use that for PR. Alright.

On the other hand the voltage regulation is not so good. The +12 V rail has wonderful load regulation, but it is set to only 11.83 V to start with. The +5 Volt standby is in a similar situation. And because the +12 V is low, the −12 V is high, even though Enhance uses −12V linear regulator. This design foible is constantly showing up in too many units and it’s not funny anymore. To keep the efficiency good, many manufacturers set the negative input to the regulator too high (the higher the input/output difference, the worse the losses). When combined with the initial load of this rail, close to its nominal (0.3 A), the regulator just passes the voltage which has no regulation (so that then also the ripple gets worse), and in the end the voltage may still be too high. Hello! Use a different method! This clearly does not work. In this case, because of too low a +12 V output (which the −12 V rail is derived from) it even resulted in the −12V rail voltage being out of spec. If I would have been totally strict, I would have just let the Strider Titanium fail right here. But it is “just” −12 V after all…

All the protections I was able to test seem to be working. The units fan stays on low speed most of the time when it is virtually inaudible. Even then the unit has quite some headroom, as it took close to 10 minutes for it to overheat. Add very high quality components and a recently extended 5 year warranty (which is not the longest but still nice), as well as fully-modular cabling, and the overall result is not that bad. Though the non gold-plated SATA connectors do feel somewhat cheap. I am not really sure what to make of the Strider SST-ST60F-TI. Maybe my expectations were too high. On one hand, it really is a good unit in many ways. On the other hand some things just do not feel right about it for it to compete in the high-end segment of the market. After all, one would pay some serious money for it, so it should perform better. High efficiency is nice, but in reality when it is maybe only a single percentage point better (maybe not even that much) than some 80 PLUS Platinum units that have a longer warranty, much better voltage regulation, and not ssuch flimsy cabling…is there really a convincing reason to choose the Silverstone unit over some other?

The value of the Silverstone Strider Titanium 600 W (SST-ST60F-TI) as a high-end unit is as follows:

• component/technology quality: −1 p. (− for lack of gold-plating, − for thinner wires, + for working OTP, + for good overloading and cooling capabilities)
• built quality: 0 p. (− for messy soldering and dozens of solder balls)
• voltage regulation: -28.5 p. (− for combined loading, − for crossloading, + for good load regulation of +12 V rail)
• ripple: 17.5 p. (+ for combined loading, + for crossloading)
• efficiency: 14 p. (+ for higher overall efficiency, + for high crossloading efficiency)
• hold-up time: 0 p. (− for shorter voltage hold-up time)
• others: 13 p. (+ for modular cabling, + for longer warranty, + for accessories)

So as a product competing in high-end segment, the unit gets a value score of 15. Assuming the cost is 3900 CZK, then the price per value ratio would be 100×15/3900 = 0.38. So after nine high-end units (which passed), we can see the SST-ST60F-TI is at the bottom of our comparison table. I think I would still buy this one over the Antec Earthwatts Platinum, but I’d just have to have my fingers crossed that it wouldn’t explode on me due to some of the loose solder balls. But the Cooler Master V Semi Modular 550 W would win between these three if it was still manufactured. And if the V series is the same or better than the V Semi Modular, then it is far better in price per value ratio any day of the week. Enhance can make good units, you just have to step on them Silverstone guys! That voltage situation is such a stupid loss of points…

Pros	+ fully modular cabling + working protections incl. OTP + great +12 V load regulation + great ripple suppression + longer warranty + high efficiency + high-quality components + silent fan, good cooling overhead
Cons	− bad voltage regulation, −12 V totally out of spec − cheaped-out SATA cabling − terrible soldering/cleaning quality − voltage hold-up time totally out of spec
Be aware of…	/?\ cheap SATA cabling

Thanks

I thank the Silverstone company for providing the Silverstone Strider Titanium 600 W (SST-ST60F-TI) unit.

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