Sharkoon SilentStorm 480W Power Supply Review

Cases & PSU/Power Supplies by jmke @ 2004-12-12

Sharkoon targets the enthusiast with their latest power supply, does the SilentStorm pack enough power to please the demanding high end user? Find out in this review

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Unit: Outside & Inside

Outside

Sharkoon focused on making the SilentStorm a functional power supply, beside the black fan grills and transparent fans there is not much “flashy” about this unit.

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The ATX power connector is almost completely sleeved, the other cables are well organized and held together with cable ties.

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  • 4-pin (HD/CD/Other) connectors: 5
  • 4-pin floppy connectors: 1
  • SATA power connectors: 4
  • PSU rpm fan monitor connector

    There are quite a lot of SATA connectors on this PSU, pushing the HDD SATA standard one bit further.

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    From left to right:

  • 6-pin PCI Express power connector
  • 4-pin 12V power connector
  • 20+4-pin ATX main power connector

    The 20+4-pin connector has been designed quite practically, the latest P4 motherboards (Socket LGA775) need a 24-pin power connector to function optimally, while the older boards still use 20-pin power connectors. The Sharkoon engineer made an easy plug system to switch between the two configurations:

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    Cooling

    Two temperature controlled fans cool the unit down when powered up; there is a small rheobus at the backside of the power supply which regulates how fast/slow the fans should increase their speed depending on the system load.

    Here’s a graph showing how the fans react with High / Low settings:

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    However during all my tests I had a hard time to actually hear any speed throttling, even moving the rheobus from max/min with a heavy system load on the PSU did not increase noise in a noticeable way. This PSU is really silent!

    An 80mm fan at back expels hot air:

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    A larger 92mm fan in the bottom sucks in hot air from the CPU area which the 80mm pushes out of the PSU.

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    Inside and More Specs

    The 480W is divided over the different voltage rails like so:

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    When compared with other popular Power Supplies’ Specs the Silent Storm is right in the middle of the pack:




    The inside is well organized with good cable routing to allow maximum airflow over the installed heatsinks

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    Now let’s hook this PSU up to our test system and see how it fares ->






    Manufacturer’ message:
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