Cooler Master Silent Pro 700W

Conclusions and Value

Compared to other 700W modular models, the Silent Pro is priced really very reasonably. Against the previous generation Real Power series it's more expensive, as you'd expect, but not by much and the efficiency and quality benefits are worth it.

You can buy a Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 650W for the price of the Silent Pro 700W, and quite frankly we'd go for the Be Quiet! even despite the 50W power margin.

In terms of our community favourites - the Corsair HX series tops out at 620W, and it's only a few quid less than the Silent Pro. Between the two, we'd argue that the Silent Pro is not only quieter, more efficient, it has 80W more power and it also comes with a five year warranty like Corsair - we'd get the Silent Pro.

The Tagan PipeRock 700W, the Enermax Infiniti 720W, the Seasonic M12 700W and the Silverstone Strider 750W (Half-Life 2 quotes are encouraged) are all more expensive too. Well, yes, some offer more power and there are different warranties, efficiencies and cables to bring to the table, but they all shoot around the same margins. The only slightly cheaper option worth buying we've found is the BFG 680W MX series.


On the whole we appreciate what Cooler Master has tried to do with the Silent Pro and we have to commend it for its ingenuity, and in application it gets most of the way to achieving everything very well. It can do its 700W with ease, no matter whether you're weighting either 3.3V, 5V or 12V, although we do advise not going over 700W since things will drop off quite quickly.

It does what it says on the tin very well, and up to its rated values it achieves a very high efficiency, only dropping slightly more in the 100 percent load with 3.3V and 5V weighting. Even then this is an unrealistic scenario for most modern PCs and at 83 percent efficiency it's nothing to sniff at.

The Silent Pro is really very quiet - certainly quieter than most PSUs it has to be said, but it isn't completely inaudible though. We are particularly strict on this subjective factor for it to have any meaning and what we can say is that the Dark Power Pro is quieter when the two are running side by side. In all likelihood though, it will sit below the threshold of noise in your case - any hard drive bar solid state will easily be at least several dBA higher, so to most people the Silent Pro will be exactly that in comparison.

Only the quality of the attempted rubber surround lets the Silent Pro down - like we pointed out before - nice idea, horrible in practice. We tried fitting it in a few cases and the rubber simply gets in the way or just by simply manhandling it it comes off.

Final Thoughts

So, would we buy the Silent Pro 700W? It certainly takes precedent over the now ageing but still hugely popular Corsair HX series, though when you compare it to the Dark Power Pro 650W it doesn't quite cut it. Don't get us wrong though, it's still an excellent purchase if you don't want a Be Quiet!, but be prepared to throw out the craptacular rubber surround because it can survive without it. On the whole, it feels like a very good product, but one attempting to be better than it is, albeit made up by a good price.

• Performance
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• -
• -
• 8/10

• Features
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• x
• x
• x
• x
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• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
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• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Overall
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• x
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• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

What do these scores mean?

Addendum: 8th October 2008

Cooler Master has listened to our concerns and dropped in with its updated Silent Pro to show us, and for us to show you. Instead of being stuck on with glue, the new rubber surround is held on with some improved rubber nipples that pop on and off quite easily, yet hold it in well enough so it doesn't just fall out on a whim. It's certainly an improvement over the previous design, fitting better and allowing freedom of choice whether to use it or not.