One of the things you may have read about Haswell is its purported decrease in power requirements, particularly during idle states. Although mobile chips claim the bulk of those savings, desktop processors and motherboards should also benefit. Likewise power supplies, as SilverStone touts on its product packaging, provide additional sources of efficiency [sic] and power savings. Within the last decade we've seen the 80Plus certification become a widely accepted standard and further expanded into Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum levels as efficiency improves. To reach the Gold standard for example, the ST65F-G must meet minimum efficiencies of 87%/90%/87% at a corresponding 20%/50%/100% of its rated load.
Combine lower hardware power requirements with more efficient power supplies and we start to see what had been a steady upward trend in power supply size begin to level off and perhaps even to decline. Of course there will always be those systems that of necessity require 1000W or more due to extreme graphics processing power or multi-processor workloads, however the average desktop system can typically get away with a smaller size power supply today than it did say five years ago. Where 750W or 850W may have once been the norm, we're now seeing units in the 500W to 650W range become more popular.
Join us as we take a look at the SilverStone Strider Gold 650W.
