SilverStone Element ST75EF 750 W Power Supply Review

Introduction

SilverStone Element ST75EF 750 W is simply a Seventeam ST-750P-AF with a different cable configuration and a different name. Since we have already reviewed ST-750P-AF, we will be able to tell if these two units are completely identical or if there are small differences between them. It is important to know that models from SilverStone Element series can be manufactured by two distinct companies: models up to 600 W are manufactured by Enhance Electronics, while models starting at 650 W are manufactured by Seventeam. SilverStone uses a lot of different manufacturers for their power supplies. Besides Enhance and Seventeam, units from their Decathlon series are manufactured by Impervio and units from their Strider series are manufactured by FSP. Phew!

Figure 1: SilverStone Element ST75EF power supply.

Figure 2: SilverStone Element ST75EF power supply.

SilverStone Element ST75EF is a small 750 W unit, being 6 ½” (16.5 cm) deep, using a 135 mm fan (which actually measures 130-mm) on its bottom and featuring active PFC, of course.

All cables are protected by a nylon sleeving, which doesn’t come from inside the power supply housing, as you can see in Figure 2. Here we saw a small difference between ST75EF and Seventeam ST-750P-AF: on ST-750P-AF only the main motherboard cable has this nylon protection.

Cables are somewhat long, measuring 20 7/8” (53 cm) between the housing and the first connector on the cable, and 9 7/8” (25 cm) between connectors on SATA and peripheral cables – which is a lot, usually power supplies have only 5 29/32” (15 cm) between connectors – and 5 29/32” (15 cm) between the connectors from the video card cables. Here we saw another smaller difference between ST75EF and Seventeam ST-750P-AF: on the reviewed power supply the cables are a little bit (1 1/4” or 3 cm) longer from the power supply housing to the first connector on the cable and also the distance between connectors on SATA and peripheral power connectors is way bigger (9 7/8” vs. 5 29/32” or 25 cm vs. 15 cm).

All wires are 18 AWG, which is the correct gauge to be used.

The cables included are:

• Main motherboard cable with a 20/24-pin connector.
• One cable with two ATX12V connectors that together form an EPS12V connector.
• Two auxiliary power cables for video cards with two six-pin video card auxiliary power connectors each.
• One auxiliary power cable for video cards with one six/eight-pin connector.
• Two SATA power cables with three SATA power connectors each.
• Two peripheral power cables with three standard peripheral power plugs each and one floppy disk drive power connector on one of them.

Probably the main difference between SilverStone ST75EF and Seventeam ST-750P-AF is here. On Seventeam ST-750P-AF the main motherboard connector does not provide a 20-pin option, it comes with a cable with one EPS12V connector and one ATX12V connector (instead of two ATX12V connectors that together form one EPS12V connector) and only two six/eight-pin connectors for video cards (in separated cables).

SilverStone ST75EF has five power connectors for video cards, allowing you to install up to two very high-end cards in SLI or CrossFire mode, since each card from this class uses two power connectors. So no direct support for three-way SLI is provided. Two cables have two connectors attached, which is not the best configuration possible: it is always better to see video card power cables using individual cables.

Figure 3: Cables.

Now let’s take an in-depth look inside this power supply.