The Silent Pro series is one of the best-known series power supplies from Cooler Master, previously covering range from 500 to 700 watts. The range has now extended to 1000W with two models rated at 850W and 1000W, including flat connection cables found in higher power classes. Today we are looking at the latter. The 1000W model comes with a 5-year warranty, promises a maximum efficiency of 86%, and uses a single +12V rail. Excluding the motherboard connectors all cables are fully modular. Cooler Master also makes note of the high quality of selected components. Even though the housing of the PSU seems to be very similar to the smaller Silent Pro, a different ODM is responsible for the manufacture. On the next pages we will explore the design and topology and see if Cooler Master is able to keep their promises.

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  • pg55555 - Sunday, September 5, 2010 - link

    Your main complain is noise, but your table indicates 20dB up to 50% load, 22dB at 80% and you complain because it becomes louder (35dB) when you overload??

    Form a table I got from other site:

    TYPICAL SOUND LEVELS
    Jet takeoff (200 feet) 120 dBA
    Construction Site 110 dBA Intolerable
    Shout (5 feet) 100 dBA
    Heavy truck (50 feet) 90 dBA Very noisy
    Urban street 80 dBA
    Automobile interior 70 dBA Noisy
    Normal conversation (3 feet) 60 dBA
    Office, classroom 50 dBA Moderate
    Living room 40 dBA
    Bedroom at night 30 dBA Quiet
    Broadcast studio 20 dBA
    Rustling leaves 10 dBA Barely audible

    So you are saying it is louder than expected because its sound level - up to more than 50% load (this is 500W what would require an i7 920 OC at 4.0 GZ with an HD5970) - is similar to a Broadcast studio?
  • cactusdog - Monday, September 6, 2010 - link

    Its loud compared to the manufacturer's claim of silence. There are plenty of PSU's that are silent. They should have called it the "CoolerMaster Nearly Silent Pro"
  • cactusdog - Monday, September 6, 2010 - link

    My experience with fans is 20dB is just audible in a quiet room. 22dB(80% load) is clearly audible so it cant claim to be silent.
  • 7Enigma - Monday, September 6, 2010 - link

    You also have to remember that different frequencies of sound are perceived differently to the human ear. There can be some very annoying quiet sounds (high frequency can be horrible), while some loud sounds (especially low frequency) can't even be perceived. Take your home theater sub; below about 15-20Hz can no longer be heard, but can be physically felt.

    When calibrating my SVS PV-10 with a single tone drop from 150-0Hz it got to a point where I heard nothing but the walls were shaking. Really creepy and cool at the same time. I'm kind of shocked more horror movies don't put some odd inaudible noises in just to make your house moan. :)
  • sonicology - Monday, September 6, 2010 - link

    Another 1000W PSU is great for those running overclocked hex-core quad SLI set-ups, however what I would really like and what nobody seems to offer is an 80 Plus Gold or Platinum 300W PSU that runs near enough silent.

    I guess consumers only care about huge wattage ratings that they don't even come close to using whilst the quality low watt PSUs go to the large OEMs?
  • 7Enigma - Monday, September 6, 2010 - link

    You're just not going to find a 300w quality supply. 400-500 yes and that is where I normally shop, but everything does tend now to be above that range.

    And as for your second statement, quality OEM PSU's? Thanks for the laugh.....:)
  • Sabresiberian - Wednesday, September 8, 2010 - link

    Actually, this PSU wouldn't work for hex-core quad SLI. Oh, there might be 4 SLI capable video cards that it could power, but I highly doubt it.

    There really is use for the high end PSUs. Consider the person who installs 2 Geforce 480s in SLI. That person needs 42A for each card for a total of 84A, which automatically makes this PSU unsuitable, because it is rated to supply a maximum of 80A @ 12V, and that's not including anything else that runs on 12V. A person considering 2 480s in SLI needs to consider a 1200W PSU, and needs to pay close attention to the rails on the one he/she buys, so that each the cards don't try to draw more power from a rail than it is rated to supply.

    The fact is, Anandtech rates lower power PSUs on as regular a basis as much as they do the higher end units. True, I haven't seen them rate any 300W PSUs in quite awhile, but it takes very little these days to need more than that, considering modern CPUs and video cards (the CPU alone would take up 1/3 to 1/2 the power). Anandtech was started as and I think still is primarily a site for enthusiasts, and there aren't many people who are going to build with a 300W PSU.

    Maybe there's some apps for them though; HTPC? Still, it seems to me that a suggestion could be made in a positive tone rather than one that bashes people for being interested in the high end market.

    Consider too, that review sites often tell us about the products that manufacturers send them for evaluation, and manufacturers send flagship models. What the manufacturer tends to think is if you read a good review about their top end PSU, you'll buy a lower end unit thinking it's built with the same care. Unfortunately, that's often not the case, especially with PSUs, so your point is quite valid, they should be tested on their own.
  • r3quiem - Tuesday, December 20, 2011 - link

    You clearly have no Idea what you are taking about in regards to the GTX 480's in SLI. The maximum powerdraw of a single GTX 480 is 250 watts / 12V rail = 21A not 42A. Now Two GTX 480's in SLI would use a Total Max of 42A there by saturating slightly more than 50% of the 12V Rail.

    Now if you look the CPU side even the power hungry Hexa Core i7-990X is rated at 130 Watt TDP. Doing some simple match 130W / 12V = 10.8 A.

    So in total without overclocking we only just used up 63 A out of the available 80A leaving 17A more headroom to play around with overclocking as you need it. And that's only if everything is working at 100% load which isn't a likely scenario unless you are running multiple benchmarks at a time.
  • 7Enigma - Monday, September 6, 2010 - link

    Article seems a bit odd without any introduction, just jumping right into the contents of the product. Me thinks a page is missing!
  • Martin Kaffei - Monday, September 6, 2010 - link

    Sry, you're right. Fixed!

    I agree with cactusdog. Of course we have seen worse results. But in this case, the manufacturer is using the word "Silent" in his name. So it shouldn't be louder than the smaller Silent Pro, which are very quiet.

    http://www.anandtech.com/show/2613/8

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