Silent Pro Gold is the 80 Plus Gold-certified power supply family that Cooler Master is releasing this month with models ranging from 800 W to 1,200 W, coming with some unique design choices. Let’s see if the 800 W model will live up to the expectations.

This unit is manufactured by Enhance Electronics.

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Figure 1: Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 800 W power supply.

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Figure 2: Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 800 W power supply.

Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 800 W is relatively a short unit, being 6 ¼” (160 mm) deep, using a 120 mm fan on its bottom and active PFC circuit, of course.

This unit offers a modular cabling system with seven connectors (all using the same color: gold), two for video card power connectors and five for peripheral and SATA power connectors, with three cables permanently attached to the power supply. The cables included are:

• Main motherboard cable with a 20/24-pin connector, 19 ½” (49 cm) long (permanently attached to the power supply).
• One cable with two ATX12V connectors that together form one EPS12V connector, 23 5/8” (60 cm) long (permanently attached to the power supply).
• One cable with one six-pin connector and one six/eight-pin connector for video cards, 23 5/8” (60 cm) to the first connector and 4” (10 cm) between connectors (permanently attached to the power supply).
• Two cables with one six-pin connector and one six/eight-pin connector for video cards each, 23 5/8” (60 cm) to the first connector, 3 ¾” (9.5 cm) between connectors (modular cabling system).
• Three cables with three SATA power connectors each, 19 ¾” (50 cm) to the first connector, 3 ½” (9 cm) between connectors (modular cabling system).
• One cable with two standard peripheral power connectors, 17 ¾” (45 cm) to the first connector, 4” (10 cm) between connectors.
• One cable with two standard peripheral power connectors and one floppy disk drive power connector, 17 ¾” (45 cm) to the first connector, 4” (10 cm) between connectors.

Here we saw more flaws than we’d like to see for a supposedly high-end “Gold” power supply. Although this unit supports the installation of up to three video cards that require two auxiliary power connectors each, these six connectors are installed in three cables instead of using individual cables. The distance between video card, SATA and peripheral power connectors is simply too short – instead of using the standard 5 7/8” (15 cm) distance between connectors, for some reason Cooler Master decided to go cheap and use 4” (10 cm) or less. On the other hand, the cables that are permanently attached to the power supply got thicker (16 AWG) wires, which is nice to see (with one exception: the connection between the six-pin and the six/eight-pin connectors is done using 18 AWG wires). The cables used on the modular cabling system use 18 AWG wires, which is the correct gauge to be used.

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Figure 3: Cables.

Now let’s take an in-depth look inside this power supply.