SilverStone ST1200-PTS PSU Review: Compact But Powerful

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Protection Features, DC Power Sequencing, Cross-Load Tests and Infrared Images

Protection Features

Check out our PSUs 101 article to learn more about PSU protection features.

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Protection Features
OCP12V: 112.2A (112.2%%), 11.814V 5V: 35A (159.09%), 4.903V 3.3V: 34.8A (139.2%), 3.190V 5VSB: 4.7A (156.67%), 4.962V
OPP>1365.72W (>113.81%)
OTP✓ (115°C @ 12V Heat Sink)
SCP12V: ✓ 5V: ✓ 3.3V: ✓ 5VSB: ✓ -12V: ✓
PWR_OKNon Accurate
NLO
SIPSurge: MOV Inrush: NTC Thermistor & Bypass Relay

DC Power Sequencing

According to Intel’s most recent Power Supply Design Guide (revision 1.4), the +12V and 5V outputs must be equal to or greater than the 3.3V rail at all times. Unfortunately, Intel doesn't mention why it is so important to always keep the 3.3V rail's voltage lower than the levels of the other two outputs.

The 3.3V rail is lower than 12V and 5V, in all cases, so it is compliant with the requirements of the ATX spec.

Cross Load Tests

To generate the following charts, we set our loaders to auto mode through custom-made software before trying more than 25,000 possible load combinations with the +12V, 5V, and 3.3V rails. The deviations in each of the charts below are calculated by taking the nominal values of the rails (12V, 5V, and 3.3V) as point zero. The ambient temperature during testing was between 30°C (86°F) and 32°C (89.6°F).

Load Regulation Charts

Efficiency Chart

For quite a large region of the PSU's operating range, the registered efficiency is higher than 92%. This is a very good result, even for an 80 PLUS Platinum certified unit.

Ripple Charts

The lower the power supply's ripple the more stable the system will be and less stress will be also applied to its components. Moreover, our equipment recorded lots of ripple variations on the 5VSB rail, but none of the readings exceeds 50mV.

Those graphs show some high ripple areas in the 3.3V rail, with ripple exceeding 50mV which is the upper limit that the ATX spec sets.

Infrared Images

We apply a half-load for 10 minutes with the PSU's top cover and cooling fan removed before taking photos with a modified FLIR E4 camera able to deliver an IR resolution of 320x240 (76,800 pixels).

Thanks to the efficient platform, the temperatures readings stay low. This is why the fan profile is relaxed under mid loads.

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Aris Mpitziopoulos
Contributing Editor

Aris Mpitziopoulos is a contributing editor at Tom's Hardware, covering PSUs.