SilverStone Decathlon SST-DA750 750W PSU review
First look
The SilverStone DA750 is, like many other high-end power supplies, a few centimeters longer than average power supplies. This may cause some installation problems in smaller cases. In my NZXT Zero case I had to remove the top fan because of this. One of the other first impressions I had is that this PSU is quite heavy, but that's not really a problem at all.
In the next picture you can see how much bigger the DA750 is compared to a regular-sized ATX PSU. The SilverStone DA750 is about 18cm (7 inch) long.
The back of the unit has honey-comb shaped ventilation holes.
A nice SilverStone logo can be found on the top side. The entire power supply is painted in black. It looks nice but it's kinda prone to finger smudges, however, I don't think that's a big problem because the power supply isn't really one of the most visible components in your case (if you have a case window).
And on the left side we can find a sticker with some of the basic information like the max output of each voltage rail and some safety warnings.
The cables
The Decathlon series features a modular cable system, this means you can disconnect all the cables that you don't need. I would like to add a warning here. While modular cables are easier to use and look better, some experts like the guys from PC Power & Cooling have raised concerns about the impact on the overall PSU performance of this feature. They claim modular plugs add as much electrical resistance as would occur in an additional 2 feet of standard wire, which leads to a relatively big voltage drop.
In the next picture you can see how it looks like with all the cables disconnected. The DA750 has lots of cables; on the left are the 4-pin, 8-pin and 24-pin motherboard connectors, then we have two 6-pin PCI Express connectors and a 8-pin PCI Express connector, 2 regular 4-pin Molex connectors and 2 Serial ATA connectors. There's also a sticker to indicate what the function of each of the ten connectors is.
Lets take a closer look at each of the cables:
First up are these three cables, we have the 24-pin motherboard connector, 4-pin ATX connector and the 8-pin EPS connector. These cables are all nicely sleeved.
Next we have two 6-pin PCI Express cables, both cables have two connectors so you can use this for a Quad SLI system. It would have been a bit prettier if these cables were fully sleeved.
SilverStone also included an 8-pin PCI Express cable, the first graphics card which uses this is the ATI R600.
Six Serial ATA power connectors are included, three on each of the two cables.
And on the last two cables we can find a total of six 4-pin Molex connectors and 2 floppy power connectors. All cables are more than long enough and you may also have noticed that all the connectors are black, IMO this looks a lot better than the regular white-colored connectors.
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Added: March 20th 2007
Product reviewed: SilverStone Decathlon SST-DA750 750W PSU
Reviewer: Thomas De Maesschalck
Score: 8/10
Page: 2/4
