SilverStone Olympia OP650 650W Power Supply Review

[One4yu2c]

"Fashion is all about timing, but all it takes to bring retro back into style is for one super model to don an outfit from yesteryear. In Silicon Valley, multiple +12V rails litter the power supply fashion runway, and we've seen as many as six of these accessories dangle from high end units. But lo and behold, case designer extraordinaire Silverstone has taken their PSU line and outfitted them with single +12V rails in what they're dubbing the Olympia. Today HardwareLogic looks at the Olympia OP650 and we'll tell you how she fares among her peers." - Paul Lilly

Read More...

[One4yu2c]

Apologies for the posts that got deleted, this thread was inadvertently nuked. Here some posts and responses that previously appeared:

Originally Posted by Screwball

Great review! My only question when testing a beefy PSU like this is:

why go with a Processor AMD 3800+ X2 Socket AM2 (AMD Socket AM2 3800+ X2 Processor Review) rather than a power hungry PentiumD EE type proc? Also why only one 80GB hd? Why not toss 4 drives plus two opticals in there for a bit more of a kick to the supply?

Also may be time to invest in the Kill-a-Watt and get some wattage and amperage readings from different supplies. Example, the E6600 setup in my sig has the Corsair 620W PSU won from here and that entire system only pulls 27W full load. Compared to other units I have that pull anywhere from 110 to 150W. A lower wattage pull even under load shows the true efficiency of a unit.

The reason I went with the AM2 setups is because it's a modern processor and supports SLI, allowing me to include two 8800GTS videocards for a greater draw on the +12V line. The 80GB hard drive is part of our test bed in most of our reviews and was used for consistency. I could have thrown another optical and hard drive on there, but in my experience doing these PSU reviews, these components end up having a negligible effect on performance, at least in our currently limited testing methodology.

As for the Kill-a-Wall, as mentioned in the review, we're currently working on a custom PSU test box that will allow us to go much more in-depth with our power supply reviews. Look for an update this summer. Until then, we'll continue to conduct PSU reviews mimicking real world usage habits with the additional stress of overclocking the processor and increasing the voltages, then looking for any signs of potential instability, as well as factoring in the feature-set (sleeved cabling, noise, cooling, connectors, etc).

Originally Posted by gvblake

What are your thoughts on having a single +12V rail with 54A as opposed to multiple +12V rails?

I can't comment from an Electrical Engineering standpoint, but as far as I'm conerned, I'm really indifferent to how a PSU manufacturer chooses to distribute the +12V amps, so long as it works. One concern we did have with multiple rails, however, is that most units tend to rate them anywhere from 15A to 20A per line. As videocards continue to draw more power, I suppose this could potentially pose a problem in the long run. The upside to more than one rail is that, in theory, they should provide cleaner (and thus more stable) power, but looking at JonnyGuru's recordings of the ripple on the OP650, this doesn't appear to be a problem.

Then there's the argument on whether multiple +12V rails are truly multiple or not, as most power supply's +12V lines come from the same source. SilentPCReview has an interesting write-up on the issue, which can be read HERE (scroll down).

That being said, I did notice something interesting inside the OP650, seen below. I'm currently in contact with SilverStone for an explanation and will report what I find out. Dread brought up a plausible explanation before thread got nuked, commenting that they're probably just multiple points of contact. In any event, here's the pic in question:

[polobunny]

As I said, keep us updated on that Paul. While they could be multiple contact points, I wouldn't see why they would name each point +12V#. That's the usual naming scheme when a power supply has more than one 12V line.
Maybe they use the same board for several power supplies of the same line and the others have multiple 12V rails?

[One4yu2c]

I spoke with Tony Ou and got a clarification on the above picture:

To answer your question regarding the rails for OP650, it was initially designed to be capable of switching between being a single +12V rail or quad +12V power supply. Although, not intended for end-users, there is a +switch on the side of OP650 (covered by warranty seal sticker) that will allow switching between the two types of +12v rail distribution. We currently do not plan on selling the retail version of OP650 as anything else but a single +12V PSU. But if we have OEM customers that must adhere to 240VA then we can easily change the parameters for them as we adjust the switch at the assembly line.

[gvblake22]

aaahhhh, very interesting, thanks for the update! Could this possibly be the PSU that Muskin uses for their XP-650 650W PSU with "RailFusion"? Seems like a similar design, just that Silverstone decided to stick with the single rail design where Mushkin wanted it more dynamic.

[Idaho]

So is this just the updated Zeus 650W?

[One4yu2c]

Originally Posted by Idaho

So is this just the updated Zeus 650W?

It looks to be a successor to the Zeus line, but it's not an update. The Olympia series is a completely different design internally.

[Lead Head]

Originally Posted by gvblake22

aaahhhh, very interesting, thanks for the update! Could this possibly be the PSU that Muskin uses for their XP-650 650W PSU with "RailFusion"? Seems like a similar design, just that Silverstone decided to stick with the single rail design where Mushkin wanted it more dynamic.

Rail-Fusion is ToPower iirc, Silverstone does not use Topower from what I can remember

[RangerXLT8]

Hey I picked one of these up and I'm in love. For the past few years I have used a PC Power & Cooling, this unit is a tier one. .01v drop under full load in 3DMark06 with a HD2900. Unit is quiet and the 120mm fan is great.