Customer Reviews

SilverStone ST1200 1200W ATX12V/EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Retail

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Alienware introduced me to SilverStone by using one of their 650W power supplies in an Aurora 7500 I purchased back in 2005. That same power supply has performed flawlessly since then, pumping out the power in a box rife with overclocking, 8 SATA drives, 2 DVDs, a flagship (at the time) GeForce 7800GTX 512, SB X-Fi and an Athlon X2 4200+ for more than six years. A year ago, I replaced the ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe with an eVGA X58 SLI X3, a Core i7 920 and 12 GB of RAM. The SilverStone took up the banner for these new parts without complaint.

After six years, the 7800 GTX 512 has finally reached the limit, and I want to play Skyrim. :D Unfortunately, my 650W SilverStone does not have the necessary 8-pin PCI-E power supplies needed for the video cards I picked out, so with a sense of regret, I have decided upon the ultimate act of betrayal.

This 1200W SilverStone PSU arrived in a nice box with a few "warm fuzzy" extras, like zip ties, velcro straps and a storage pouch to keep your unused modular power cords in. It has easy to read labels on every modular connection, and they were all connected upon arrival. The large bottom fan makes a good replacement for the smaller rear-facing fan in my old supply, and the power cables are actually slightly longer than those on the previous supply. There are enough SATA power cables to plug in the four drives in my main array located at the bottom front of a full size ATX tower case, while being routed through the back, hidden cable channels. The power cables, much like the old supply, are wrapped in a nylon expansion sheath which keeps the bundles together, and prevents wide fans of wires from blocking airflow to critical components.

The power cord (and outlet) that comes with this PSU isn't the standard C13/C14 arrangement, but a higher C19/C20, 16A power cord. The plug-side is still a standard NEMA 15A plug, and this supply shouldn't pull more than a standard outlet will put out, but keep the change in mind.

I plugged this new PSU into my APC BR-1500, half expecting to blow the overload alarm and have to skip battery backup. On my old SilverStone, flipping the manual power switch on would cause the caps to pull enough juice to dim the lights in the house. This PSU doesn't do anything like that. I'm now running a pair of eVGA 560 Ti 448 Classified cards in SLI along with everything else, and this supply functions as flawlessly as the previous one.

Only time will tell if it has the same longevity, but I'll certainly report back if I have issues.