SilverStone ET700-MG Power Supply Review
Mike Sanders / 4 years ago
A Closer Look
Out of the box, the SilverStone ET700 initially presents itself well with it’s sleek black design contrasted well against some of the white highlights noted to the branding sections.
The fan located to the top of this power supply has a strong aesthetic with the SilverStone logo to the centre a clear highlight of the overall design. The fan cover can easily be removed via 4 simple screws that allows for a ‘deep clean’ should it ever be necessary.
While there is some product branding to the sides, it is both well presented and of a size that doesn’t detract from the sleek black look. As noted above, the white highlighted areas really work well on an aesthetic level and overall, I think many would agree that SilverStone has struck a good balance here.
The power input bank is excellent represented with each port being itemized depending on its usage. In addition, with each section well spaced, cable removal and insertion (although a bit stiff) doesn’t provide you with any difficulties.
The rear exhaust vent is fantastically large with open vents to practically all of the area available. This should, all going well, help promote solid airflow and, by proxy, help keep the temperatures down.
Cabling
Unfortunately, SilverStone does not provide the cabling within any type of packaging and, as such, sits ‘loose’ within the main box. On the plus side, however, the cables are well presented with a significant portion of them being itemized for not only their application, but also with clarification as to which end goes where.
In terms of the length, they are also pretty generous and as such should allow for excellent cable management within even some of the biggest (or unforgiving) PC chassis designs.
Internals – A Look Inside!
Once inside the SilverStone ET700, the initial impressions are very good. You are not met with masses of cables sprouting from every orifice and, generally speaking, everything looks clean, tidy, and well organized.
A closer look at the fan sadly finds that this is not a SilverStone own design. That being said, however, many PSU manufacturers often opt for third-party fans as, generally speaking, and unlike a CPU cooler, the fan doesn’t (or shouldn’t) have a particularly taxing job on its hands here.
On the plus side, we have encountered ‘Poweryear’ designs in the past and have never failed to be impressed with their performance.
The PCB is generally well presented with all of the main components well organized and spaced out. In addition, with the heat sinks located in a near central position, this should allow for good airflow based on the fans location when fitted.
Yes, there are a few moderately messy cables at the top, but I promise you that we have seen designs massively worse than this in the past!
In terms of the capacitors, SilverStone has chosen their words carefully citing that the ET700 has a main Japanese capacitor rather than 100%. What does this mean? Well, while the big capacitor below is indeed Japanese (manufactured by the highly-reputable ‘Nippon Chemi-Con’) the others within this PSU are almost certainly not.
Given that the main capacitor does come from such a reputable brand, however, and the fact that it is rated to 105c, this is exactly what you want to see from this main and highly-important component.
Overall Thoughts!
In terms of aesthetics, while the SilverStone ET700 doesn’t offer much in terms of ‘razzle-dazzle’ it does still carry a very sleek design that is translated well into the excellent organized internal components. Put simply, based on what we can see here, this gives us every belief that this should perform well in our rigerous testing process.
Will it though? Well, there’s only one way to find out! – Onto the testing!