Cooler Master Silent Pro M 600 Watt Modular Power Supply

Cooler Master has been offering power supplies for a couple of years now and the quality of their products has improved over time.  They are famous for their enclosures and heat sinks. Previously, we have reviewed their Real Power Pro and UCP series of power supplies.  Today, we are going to take a look at a new series in Cooler Master's product line up.  The new series is called 'Silent Pro M', the M meaning that it is modular.  I believe that this series is Cooler Master's first attempt at a  modular power supply.  Our model is the 600 watt version, but it is also offered at 500 and 700 Watts.  This power supply is SLi Ready and 80 Plus certified.

This power supply is nicely packaged.  I like the unique box it comes in.

Upon opening the box, you will find the users manual, a seemingly pointless CD with a similar manual on it, black screws, power cable (strangely, we received a model with a European power cord, perhaps it is because it is a only a sample), modular cables, and a warranty card.  Note that the modular cables feature a ribbon like wiring, making it look better in your case by creating less wire mess and making it easier to conceal in your case.  I like it.

Here are some of the main features and specifications from Cooler Master's Website:

The Power Supply:

The power supply features a traditional textured black colored housing and fan grill.  This unit does look a bit more 'boxy' than other power supplies.

The side is also imprinted with the 'Silent Pro 600W'' and is only featured on one side.  This is clearly visible if you are using a case with a built-in window.

Looking at the top of the power supply, there is a Cooler Master label with their logo on it, the model number and a condensed specification list.  Note that there is a single +12v rail supplying up to 40 Amps.  The 3.3v supplies up to 20 Amps and the +5v supplies up to 20 Amps. The efficiency is 80 percent or greater at 20%, 50% and 100% loads.  According to the 80Plus website, this power supply has an average efficiency of 84% at typical loads.

There is an large grill on the back which allows the 135 mm fan to exhaust hot air, an on/off switch and AC Power Input. *Note the blue and red arrows.  Cooler Master included two rubber gaskets (one for the front and one for the back of the power supply) that fit into the holes marked with a red arrow.  The blue arrows are where the screws go.  Supposedly, this reduces noise coming from the power supply.  We'll see if this works later on.  This power supply does feature Active PFC, so there is no need for a  switch to select the input voltage.

This power supply features the following cables:

This power supply is modular featuring a total of six modular connections.  Four for the hard drives, optical drives, and floppy power connector and two for the PCI Express power connectors.

-A 24-pin ATX power connector

-A 4/8-pin +12v CPU/EPS Power Connector

-2x  6+2-Pin PCI-Express Power Connectors.

-5x Molex Power Connectors

-9x Serial ATA Power Connectors

-1x Floppy Power Connector

Cooling:

There is a 135mm fan on the bottom of this power supply.  During testing, at idle loads, this fan is somewhat quiet, but a lot more whiny than what I've seen in similar power supplies. With loads, the fan sped up, making a small whirring sound.  The noise was acceptable, but I was disappointed that Cooler Master chose such a whiny fan.

Inside the Power Supply:

* Taking this power supply apart will void the warranty.

Inside the power supply,  there are two large silver finned heat sinks to cool down the voltage rectifiers.  The main transformer is near the upper middle of image, while the smaller transformer is hidden below it, slightly right of the image.  The primary capacitors consist of two Nippon Chemicon branded capacitors (both 105c rated), while the secondary capacitors are Teapo branded.  This power supply does not appear to be built by AcBel. AcBel manufactures most of Cooler Master's power supply line up but it seems like Cooler Master has chosen a different manufacturer for their Silent Pro M series.

The primary capacitors are both Nippon-Chemicon branded and rated for up to 105c.

The secondary capacitors are Teapo branded.

The fan inside is a Young Lin branded fan. It has the model number DFS132512M with a maximum draw of 2.4 Watts.

Testing:

For this power supply, the test system consists of the following:

-Antec Nine Hundred Case

-Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor @ 3.4 GHz (1.4v)

-ZeroTherm Nirvana 120 Heatsink

-eVGA nForce 680i SLi Motherboard

-4GB (2GB x 2) of OCZ Platinum DDRII-1066 Memory

-320GB x 4 Western Digital 7200RPM 16MB Cache Hard Drives

-2x nVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS (G92) Video Cards @ 715MHz Core / 1000 MHz Memory

-Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital Sound Card

-Asus 16x DVD-RAM / 18x Samsung DVD-RAM Drives

-4x 120MM fans, 1x 200mm fan

-2x CCFL Lights

(Multimeter Results)

*For additional / larger pictures of the Cooler Master Silent Pro M 600 Watt, Click Here

*Voltages are at a 'Max Load' for a typical gaming computer, running Orthos, Sisoft Sandra Hard Drive benchmark and 3DMark06 CPU Test 1 and 2 / Deep Freeze HDR test, and read with a Multi-Meter.

Capacitor Brands:

Primary: Excellent

Secondary: Great

Primary: Nippon-Chemicon

Secondary: Teapo

Voltage Results:

+The results were excellent for this power supply, the results being well within range.  The +12v rail remained quite strong.  The voltages barely budged when transitioning from an idle state to a load state. Great!

Stability Results:

+Everything ran fine during testing, the system was stable and performed the tests as expected. 

Fan Speed Impressions:

+During the tests, the fan speed did not vary much, being quiet but whiny in idle mode and only producing a slight whirr with loads. The rubber gaskets that come with the power supply did nothing to help quiet the power supply.

Installation:

+/- Installation of this power supply went well.  There were no issues fitting it inside the test system's case, although the rubber gaskets made it tough to line up the screws to tighten down the power supply.

Conclusion:

This power supply would be ideal for anyone looking to build multi core gaming / workstation system with two video cards.  It features SLi Readiness and 80Plus certification.  Currently, this power supply is not listed in Nvidia's SLi Zone website, but I'm sure that this power supply can handle the newer the GeForce's in SLi, as long as each card uses only one PCI-e power connector. There is an adequate amount of power connectors, as well.  I like the ribbon style cabling that the modular cables feature, they are colored black and blend nicely within a computer case.  At around $130, this power supply is priced a little bit higher than other comparible power supplies.  Overall, this is a great power supply and should be purchased by anyone looking for good efficiency, great output performance, and great build quality.

Pros +

-Excellent power output

-Modular cabling (ribbon)

-Five Year Warranty

Cons -

-Priced higher than other top 600 Watt class power supplies

-Fan makes whiny noises at idle loads

-Rubber gasket can make installation a bit difficult and does not help with noise suppression

Techaddicts.net would like to give this power supply a Great rating!

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