High Performance Gaming on a Budget: Building a Value PC with Cooler Master’s Silent Pro 600 M

The Power Supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro 600 M

Welcome to our Value series, part 4.  This review covers the power supply unit (PSU) of our new value build that we introduced here.  The second part of our “High Performance Gaming on a Budget” series of reviews, reviewed an extraordinary value case, “Building a Value PC with Cooler Master’s Gladiator 600”. The third part jumped ahead to the benchmarks, comparing our new value PC’s AMD Athlon II X2 and Phenom II X2/X3 platform verses the much more expensive Intel Core2Quad setup.

However, as important as saving money on hardware is, this editor believes that the choice of a power supply (PSU) is critical to any PC build. The PSU should never be cheap or generic. Too much depends on it to go bargain bin or generic hunting. I would recommend that you instead look for sales and perhaps even rebates to save money.  At the time of writing this article, Cooler Master’s Silent Pro 600 M has been on sale at NewEgg.com for the last few weeks for only $79.99 with free shipping!  That is $40 off the regular price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171036

You also need to remember that a quality PSU will likely last through several builds if you plan ahead. Another thing to consider is “noise” – ideally you do not want your power supply’s cooling fan adding any.

We are not out of order by insisting on Cooler Master’s Silent Pro 600 M.  We are helping to get the word out that generic and cheap power supplies waste lot of electricity and thus your money.  They also hurt your wallet by producing excess heat and costing you more electricity per month in cooling your room.  Even worse, a cheap PSU may not provide stable power for your PC components and will perhaps even shorten their life; and they will certainly limit your overclocking potential.

Although we are planning a budget build, we have planned for at least a HD 4870-X2 or HD 4870 CrossFire and we require absolute stability from our power supply unit. We also plan a practical test of this PSU’s stability that may blow your mind; something that we do not recommend that you attempt for yourself.