Cooler Master Silent Pro 700W

Cooler Master Silent Pro 700W

Manufacturer: Cooler Master
UK Price (as reviewed): £91.18 (inc. VAT)

Introduction

Cooler Master has been making, well, "making" power supplies for many years, but we have to admit it's not until recently that we gave them much consideration. Just before Computex this year we dropped into Cooler Master HQ in Taiwan to say 'Hi' to those we know there, and inevitably nose around to see what's new. We were introduced to one of the Power Supply Product Managers, Joey Cheng, who has spent many years working as an electrical engineer for an industrial PSU testing company.

Thankfully, despite some epic discussions about power supplies (Joey is a great guy, but there's only so much riveting discussion you can have about a product that converts and delivers electrons), he grabbed an Ultimate 900W from one of many PSUs sitting on a shelf and proceeded to plug it into the same Chroma machines we use here in the UK. There was a particular satisfaction that we're doing something right when a major manufacturer uses the same testing methods as we do, and in about five minutes he not only had it running at several load levels but had demonstrated it could achieve 87+ percent efficiency across the range, confirming that it was no magic that had got the UCP one of the very first 80Plus Silver Awards.

Joey went on to elaborate that his team had made a 90+ percent efficient model, but it was about three times as expensive and we'd simply have to wait until the component costs came down in time for it to be marketable. While impressive the more relevant point to this review was that he told us the same technology, albeit in a more cost effective sense, was used to make the Silent Pro series we're looking at today.

Power efficiency aside, one thing we are very particular about here at bit-tech is the use of the word silent. For something to be silent it must be inaudible - nothing else. So when we say the latest Be Quiet Dark Power Pro is "silent" it is in fact so quiet we can't actually tell it's turned on without looking at it, however the PC Power and Cooling "Silencer" is very much not what its name suggests.

So does Cooler Master's "Silent" Pro actual achieve silence, as well as its claimed high efficiency? We threw caution to the wind in an attempt to find out.

Cooler Master Silent Pro 700W

This product has clearly been thought out from the ground up. Opening the box is more like revealing the innards of a treasure box than getting to your new power supply. The box itself doesn't offer any kind of detail about what's inside, just what it is and the five year warranty Cooler Master attach to it.


Inside there's a warranty card, a paper user manual and a CD with 10.1MB on it including the a slightly more in depth manual. Why there couldn't be just one manual with everything in, I don't know. In addition there's the usual power cable and bundles of modular cables that are needed for later on, but no cable tidying bits like Velcro straps or even a couple of cable ties.