Lian Li Silent Force 850W PSU

A Force of Silence

Lian Li uses a lovely textured black finish on the units' exterior - it doesn't pick up fingerprints, it looks great and is certainly hard wearing compared to the usual black boxes that we get.

The large 13.5cm, clear bladed fan doesn't light up like you'd expect - Lian Li takes "Silent" to two levels, being environmentally unintrusive on both your eyes and ears. On the side there's the usual power rating sticker and certifications, along with the "diamond cut" textured Silent Force sticker above it that that mirrors the logo over the fan - both afford the same great sense of style you'd expect from Lian Li.

This is spoiled however by the large barcode stickers and huge "Warranty Void" label that are tacked on somewhere along the production line, ruining all the designers' hard work. It ends up looking mildly tacky and you can't remove any of this without voiding the warranty.


At the back there's the usual honeycomb grille as well as a large on-off button, and on the side are two stickers informing of RoHS compliance and Lian Li's fan delay-off function. This keeps the PSU fan running for two minutes after the system is powered off in order to give the hot components an additional cool down that apparently extends their lives.


The unit is semi modular - the ATX cable, and both EPS 12V cables (4+4-pin and 8-pin) both stem from the PSU itself, while the PCI-Express and peripheral connectors are categorised into red and black connectors respectively. These include helpful labels above as to which connector powers which rail and what 12V rails of the four are being used where. The connectors thoughtfully face outwards so you can always get to the clips without having to unplug other cables or wedge your pinkies in - this is often a simple oversight but Lian Li has included it here.


There is no vibration reduction offered between the PSU and case like we've seen on some other power supplies, like the Cooler Master Silent Pro for example, and the fan doesn't house grommets between itself and the metal surround either. With that said though, nobody else we know does this yet.


The four 12V rail design affords healthy two 20A and two 30A lines, although the maximum rated wattage here is 750W from all of them so rail balancing is assumed in the design since they can't all be maxed out at once. At 88 percent of the total wattage (or technically 91 percent since 25W is dedicated to -12V and 5V standby), the 12V rails are a high percentage of the total, although not quite as much as the OCZ EliteXStream's 93 percent capacity. A high 12V percentage is better since most PC systems these days rely on 12V for PCI-Express, CPU, motherboard and peripheral power since it's more efficient.