Silverstone DA1000R 1000W Cybernetics Gold ATX 3.0 PCIe 5.0 PSU Review

Silverstone have long been masters of their craft when it comes to power supplies. They're well known for often having the most powerful PSUs in the smallest form factors, and often at the best efficiencies too. The new Silverstone DA1000R Gold isn't quite as extreme as that, but it is a sensibly compact ATX power supply and promises to deliver 1000W of power with an 80 Plus Gold and Cybernetics Gold efficiency rating. Pretty much the base level for what you want in a high-end or enthusiast gaming PC these days, and with the inclusion of PCIe Gen5 12VHPWR support, and the latest Intel ATX 3.0 specifications, it's certainly ticking all the right boxes. Silverstone DA1000R Gold Big on power, gold efficiency and the latest standards go a long way to making a great PSU. However, Silverstone rates this power supply for 24/7 continuous power output, rather than just a peak output, so if you're the sort of regular gamer folk we are here at eTeknix, running your favourite game for 10 hours plus shouldn't be an issue, nor should leaving you PC rendering video at full load for days on end, if that's what you need it to do. Features Equipped with Gen5 12VHPWR PCIe connector, meeting Intel ATX 3.0 specification standard Cybenetics Gold efficiency certification 24/7 continuous power output with 50℃operating temperature Fully Modular design All Japanese electrolytic capacitors Ultra silent 135mm FDB fan with semi-fanless function Specifications For in-depth features and specifications, please check out the official product page here. Packaging & Accessories The box looks great, with a vibrant blue and gold that grabs your attention. There's also a clear photo of the PSU, showing the fan design, as well as all of the connectors available on the back. Around the back, you'll find all the information about power output, efficiency, cables, and build quality you would likely ever need to know if looking at the PSU in a retail store. I always think, if you have to Google something, the packaging has failed at its job, but it's all here! On the interior, there's a bit of cardboard covering the cables, and a double layer of foam protecting the PSU. Little disclaimer, it doesn't look like I'm the first person to open this box. The cables are a bit messy, and I suspect it's been used for a demo somewhere... It may have even been me for a case review, I honestly can't recall, we do so many! All the cables are black with black connectors, and all but the 12VHPWR cables are flat too. A Closer Look The PSU itself looks great, with a nicely designed fan grill on the top, that features a triangular cut metal pattern, which we see on many Silverstone products, such as their cases and coolers, so the aesthetics will match the rest of their range. Down the side, there's a large sticker, with the DA1000R logo, as well as the new Cybernetics Gold rating. And then the same sticker on the other side but inverted. The connectors are plentiful here, with a 24+6 feeding to the 24-pin, now, I've never seen that setup before, but I assume it's going to help deliver better voltage stability to the motherboard. There are a good amount of PCIe and EPS connectors, three peripheral connectors, and of course, the latest 12VHPWR too. On the bottom, you have your specifications and safety rating sticker, and as you can see, this unit can deliver a whopping 83.5A totalling 1000W on a single large +12V rail. At the back, there's a good amount of ventilation, the AC line-in, a master power switch, and also a semi-fanless mode switch. A Closer Look - Internal Opening up the PSU was pretty each, with six small screws holding the lid on. With it removed, you can access the fan, which is a 135mm design. It's the Hong Hua HA13525H12SF0Z, which we know is a very popular fan found in the likes of Seasonic, MSI, Thermaltake, DeepCool, NZXT, and likely more brands power supplies, and it wouldn't be doing the rounds that much if it wasn't decent! The interior of the PSU looks pretty packed, but also very clean and tidy too, which I always like to see. Sometimes you see adhesives, glue, blobs of solder or trailing wires, but not here, it looks very well planned out. The main bulk capacitor is rated for 400v and 720 uf. It's worth pointing out that all the capacitors used here are excellent quality Japanese-made components, which is pretty much always a good sign. One thing I've never seen in a PSU, are these extra long capacitors, or extra tall, however you want to look at it. This one is rated for 3300uf at 16v, so it may be slim, but it's pretty powerful! There's another one on the connector board too, just tucked into the back of it horizontally. There are a bunch of powerful capacitors dotted throughout the PCB too, such as this 16v 2200 uF unit. There are good quality 16v caps too (the smaller ones) marked in silver with blue and red highlights. The PCB is quite compact, keeping the PSU in a standard ATX form factor, and it uses a few daughter boards to keep the size down. This one features the fan connector (left), a two-pin connector for the fan control switch on the rear of the PSU (middle), and there's even a 5-pin DRGB connector despite there being no RGB on this PSU, however, I suspect they can use this same PCB in multiple units to save cost. The AC line-in looks very robust, with a thick layer of shielding and a reinforced design. There's some line filtering, thick solder, and heavy-duty wiring here too, so overall, it looks very well made. There's a small board between the transformer and the caps, which has a thick metal shielding plate bridging it into the main PCB with the 3.3v and 5v coils on a second board just behind that. There are three aluminium heatsinks too, each located down the centre of the power supply covering the PFC and MOSFETs where they're going to get the most airflow, and their fins pointing towards the rear exhaust ventilation. Methodology & Testing At eTeknix we take the power supply testing procedure very seriously and have invested a lot of resources into acquiring the appropriate testing equipment. For all power supply reviews, we test the power supplies with dedicated power supply testing equipment. This means we can get the most accurate results from our testing as opposed to using software benchmarks (such as OCCT) or multi-meter readouts which are broadly inaccurate. Testing Hardware Sunmoon SM-8800 Active Load Tester Stingray DS1M12 USB Oscilloscope Voltcraft DT-10L laser tachometer What the eTeknix Test Procedure Involves Testing each power supply at 20/40/60/80/100% load (with load balanced across all rails) and measuring PFC (power factor correction), efficiency (actual power divided by power "pulled at the wall") which also uses a 50% load test, and voltage regulation (deviance from expected voltages of 3.3/5/12 on the main rails). Measuring ripple with an oscilloscope at 20/40/60/80/100% load. Transient loads taken with an oscilloscope are taken from 0% to 100% on the 12v raid, 3.3v rail, and then both combined. Measuring fan speed after a stabilisation period of five minutes at each loading scenario using the Voltcraft DT-10L laser tachometer and a reflective strip on the fan. Testing each power supply's OPP (Over Power Protection) mechanism and seeing how many watts each power supply can deliver before shutting down. Any deviation from this will be explained per review as appropriate on the respective testing pages, but this methodology page will remain unchanged. Other Things to Consider We recognise that a single 12-volt cable can provide only 6 Amps before overheating (which corrupts voltage regulation and efficiency) so we used an adequate number of cables for each power supply to ensure there is no efficiency loss from poor cable selection. If there is more than one 12VHPWR on a PSU, all will be used to test their combined loads. We use the same time scale and horizontal millivolt scale on our oscilloscope for all ripple tests, that is a 20ms T/DIV (horizontal) and a 0.02 V/DIV (vertical) meaning the scale is from -80mV to +80mV, ATX spec dictates that the 12v rail must fall within 150mv of ripple and the 3.3/5 within 50mv so that scale allows us to include both 150 and 50mV peaks. (Some older PSU reviews use different scales which were later ditched as the visual representation they give is inadequate, in these reviews written measurements are provided only). Deviance is the terminology used to represent the way voltages diverge from the expected values Voltage Regulation To test voltage regulation we load the power supply to five different load scenarios that give an equal spread of load across every single rail. So that means 20% on all rails, 40% on all rails and so on. We then calculate the average deviation of each rail from its expected voltage. Ideally, anything of +/- 2% regulation is seen as a very good result. Power Efficiency Power efficiency is measured by calculating the supplied wattage divided by the wattage drawn at the wall/plug, multiplied by 100 to give a percentage. We then compare that to the particular 80 Plus certification the company claims to see if it meets that. You can see the 80 Plus certifications below, we always test power supplies at 230v. Transient Loads Power Factor Correction Power Factor Correction is the ratio of the real power flowing to the load, to the apparent power in the circuit. PFC aims to make the load circuitry that is power factor corrected appear purely resistive (apparent power equal to real power). In this case, the voltage and current are in phase and the reactive power consumption is zero. The closer the number to one the better as this allows the most efficient delivery of electrical power (Source - Wikipedia). Ripple An oscilloscope can easily measure noise and Ripple. These show how much voltage fluctuation there is on a particular rail. We tested the rail stability of the 3.3-volt, 5-volt and 12-volt rails using an identical time and millivolt scale for all graphs. millivolt ripple is measured by the peak-to-peak size of the voltage curve. The latest ATX 12-volt version 2.3 specifications state that ripple from peak to peak must be no higher than 50 millivolts for the 3.3-volt and 5-volt rails, while the 12-volt rail is allowed up to 120 millivolts peak to peak to stay within specifications. Millivolt figures are stated to the closest increment of 5 given their variability. OPP Power supplies are often quoted as having various protection mechanisms and the most important of these is Over Power Protection. In our testing, we crank up the power draw until the power supply either shuts down (meaning the OPP mechanism is present and working) or blows up (meaning it is either not present or not working). We then note the maximum power consumption before the power supply shut down, or before it blew up. Fan Speed When testing in a power supply laboratory it is difficult to take fan noise readings as the noise from the Sunmoon test equipment and air conditioning corrupts everything. The next best thing in our circumstances was reading off the fan speed with a tachometer to get an idea of the noise. The ambient temperature during testing is held constant at 22 degrees, with 1 degree of variation. Each power supply had a consistent period of 5 minutes to stabilise between each load scenario. In my experience, the following general relationships apply between noise levels and fan speeds, though it can vary greatly between the type of fan used. Below 800 RPM - Inaudible/Silent 800 to 1000 RPM - Barely audible 1000 - 1200 RPM - Audible but still quiet 1200 - 1400 RPM - Moderately noisy 1400 - 1800 RPM - Noisy 1800 - 2000 RPM or above - Intolerable Internal Components This is just an example of what you can expect to see on a PSU interior. Efficiency The efficiency of this unit is fantastic, consistently above 90% at all loads. It's pretty close to scoring an 80 Plus Platinum rating too, so a big thumbs up for efficiency here. The PFC is also excellent and some of the most consistent I've seen. Even at 20% load, it starts strong with just a 0.96 PFC and the closer to 1.00 the better, with the PSU scoring 0.98 and 0.99 at all other loads, it's going to waste less power, generates less heat and honestly, this is the highest PFC score I've seen so far. PFC (Power Factor Correction) Voltage Regulation Keeping with that "the best I've seen" theme, the voltage regulation is exceptional. For the sake of our load tester, the 12V rail was split over two simulated rails. All are under 1% deviance, and anything under 3% is pretty great, so this is just exceptionally good. Ripple The ripple is by far one of the most consistent I've seen too. Normally it starts with more ripple at lower loads and cleans up as you go through the range, but this started great and stayed broadly the same at all loads. Especially so on the 3.3v and 5VSB with some incredibly low ripple on both. 3.3V 5V 12V 5VSB Over Power Protection and Max Wattage Pushing the OPP to its limits this PSU managed to draw significantly above its 1000W rating, with the OPP not kicking in until 1286.9 watts. Now, for a power spike, that's no problem, but it bodes well for those of you who plan on putting around 1000W consistently. However, if that's your plan, I would suggest you get a more powerful PSU, but honestly, this PSU will do it if you need it to. Transient Loads These results measure the power supply from 0% load to 100% load on various rails to simulate a power spike from your system. Typically, we would like to see as small a spike as possible relative to the requested voltage. With modern GPUs being notorious for power spikes, this is becoming more relevant in modern PSU design. The specifications for ATX 3.0 were released in February 2022. It includes the new 16-Pin 12vHPWR connector that can deliver up to 600 W to graphics cards. These incorporate data lines for components to negotiate power capabilities with the PSU so they do not draw more power than the PSU is capable of delivering. The specification also has more strict requirements for handling spikes, two times the nominal output for 100 microseconds. It's fair to say the transient loads on this PSU are about as perfect as I could hope for. Very clean and fast transitions, no over or undershoot, and no unwanted ripple. Really, I couldn't expect much better than this. 0-100% 3V 0-100% +5VSB 0-100% 12V Cross-Loads 3.3V and 5V are tested at 10-100% loads together, and then 12V is tested in the same fashion. This shows us if the PSU is able to maintain its target voltage regulation while delivering different loads. Ideally, you want to see this within 5% deviance, but under 3% is better, and of course, the lower the better with 0.00% change being the ideal result. Everything is well within that 3% target here, and like much of the other testing, exceptionally consistent. The 3.3v and 5v rails only showed a 1.5% and 0.1% deviance at 80% load in the first test, and the 12v dropped 2% at 10% loads, but overall, this bodes well for system stability. Fan Speed The fan was surprisingly lazy on this PSU, it didn't have to work hard in either mode. The excellent efficiency and PFC mean that less unnecessary heat is generated, and the fan was able to spin as low as 110 RPM in some scenarios, or completely off in the hybrid mode for total silence. The fan can spin up to around 1500 RPM, and on a hot day when you're maxing it out for long periods I'm sure it will, but it's a good quality fan and is unlikely to be bothersome over the typical noise of any case fans anyway. How Much Does it Cost? The Silverstone DA1000R 1000W Cybernetics Gold ATX 3.0 PCIe 5.0 PSU is available now from Amazon for £181.74. That is right in the middle of the competition, with MSI, Corsair, ASUS, and a few others having similarly equipped units from £150 to £210, largely they're on the higher side, with Amazon deals putting some on the lower side of that range. However, I suspect when it comes to performance, Silverstone is leading the pack here, this is an impressively well-made power supply for the money. Overview I'm very impressed with this power supply. I have been out of the PSU review section for about five years, but have recently taken over since Mike moved on to a new job. However, I remember always being impressed with Silverstone power supplies in the past, and clearly, that trend hasn't changed. This is a great PSU for systems that are designed for constant gaming sessions or workhorse-like systems that will be put through a meat grinder of rendering on overclocked hardware. It is designed to run at high loads, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week with a 50c operating temperature. Looking at the performance figures it delivered today, I have no reason to doubt it too. What impressed me was just how consistent it was in every test. Most good PSUs have a sweet spot, typically around 60-80% load where they perform their best. However, the DA1000R pretty much hits its voltage regulation, PFC, efficiency and ripple from low loads, and maintains those results consistently throughout the full load range, which is very impressive. For overclocking, low ripple to deliver power cleanly, with stable voltage at varying and cross loads can be pretty important, as well as the ability to maintain that while dealing with large transients can be the difference between a high score and a blue screen of death (I know they're not blue anymore). So with the DA1000R, you're not going to have any of those problems, at least not with the PSU, your motherboard and other components will, of course, still be a factor. Should I Buy One? The DA100R is a great PSU and 1000W of power on a single 12V rail will deal with the latest and greatest graphics cards and processors with ease. Thanks to its great efficiency, PFC and voltage stability, this PSU runs cooler, quieter and more consistently than anything else in its respective class. The exceptional benchmark scores prove once again that Silverstone is one of the best when it comes to designing quality power supplies.