Silverstone ST85F Strider 850W

Fan Noise

Since the PSU is so efficient it can run the fan at much slower speeds to get rid of the heat. While the fan does not seem to ramp up under load a noise level of 43 dbA @ 10 cm can be considered quiet. Especially if you use your system for a lot of office work where your system is mainly idle, a quiet PSU can be very enjoyable.

Value and Conclusion

	With a price of around $200 the Silverstone Strider ST85F is certainly not cheap.
	Very high efficiency Quiet 8-Pin connectors for new VGA cards Modular Lots of connectors Long cables Cables partially sleeved
	Cables not fully sleeved Expensive
9.1	The Silverstone ST85F Strider 850W is a rock solid gaming PSU that can impress with an extremely high efficiency rating of well over 80% in our testing. Such a high efficiency means that heat losses are smaller, so it can do with a slower running fan. Since the fan is a 135 mm variant it can run even slower than a 92mm or 120mm fan as found in other PSUs. Together this makes for a very quiet power supply, considering its 850W power output. It would have been nice if the idle fan speed would be even slower for less noise. Having the modularity feature will allow you to use only the cables you need, which means you end up with a much cleaner case inside and don't have to hide unused cables. The connectors included with the ST85F are plenty and the cables are long enough, even for big cases. Silverstone also includes the new 8-pin power plugs for high-end video cards like the HD 2900 Series. Voltage stability is fine for a PSU in that Watt range, the Silverstone Strider 850W should be able to safely power any system you can build, including SLI, CrossFire and overclocking.