SilverStone Element power supply series is being out for some years now, and we were curious to review their popular 500 W model, ST50EF-Plus. It is important to know that models from SilverStone Element series can be manufactured by two distinct companies: models up to 600 W are manufactured by Enhance Electronics, while models starting at 650 W are manufactured by Seventeam. SilverStone uses a lot of different manufacturers for their power supplies. Besides Enhance and Seventeam, units from their Decathlon series are manufactured by Impervio and units from their Strider series are manufactured by FSP. Phew!

Enhance Electronics is the manufacturer behind power supplies from Akasa, Real Power Pro series from Cooler Master, TruePower Quattro series from Antec and some models from BFG, just to name a few. Keep in mind that not all models from these brands are manufactured by Enhance.

click to enlarge
Figure 1: SilverStone Element ST50EF-Plus power supply.

click to enlarge
Figure 2: SilverStone Element ST50EF-Plus power supply.

Element ST50EF-Plus is small 5 ½” (14 cm) power supply, having a 120-mm fan on its bottom and active PFC, of course.

Only the main motherboard, EPS12V and video card cables use nylon protections, which don’t come from inside the power supply housing, as you can see on Figure 2. The included cables are:

• Main motherboard cable with a 24-pin connector (no 20-pin option).
• Cable with one EPS12V connector.
• Two auxiliary power cables for video cards with six-pin video card power connectors.
• Two SATA power cables with three SATA power connectors each.
• Two peripheral power cables with three standard peripheral power plugs and one floppy disk drive power connector each.

The number of cables is good enough for an entry-level or mainstream PC, but we think that SilverStone should have used a six/eight-pin connector on one of the video card auxiliary power cables, in order to allow you to install a very high-end video card that requires one eight-pin power connector and one six-pin power connector at the same time.

All cables have 21 5/8” (55 cm) between the power supply housing and the first connector on the cable. On the peripheral power cables there is 5 7/8” (15 cm) between connectors, but on the SATA power cables there is 9 7/8” (25 cm) between connectors, being the cables with the longest space between connectors we’ve seen to date. Most wires are 18 AWG, which is the correct gauge to be used, but the main motherboard cable and the EPS12V cable use 16 AWG wires (i.e. thicker), which is always great to see.

click to enlarge
Figure 3: Cables.

Let’s now take an in-depth look inside this power supply.