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Introduction

How many 12v rails should a PSU have? This has always been somewhat debatable, some entering the single rail camp, and others preferring the route of the dual or even quad rail units. Silverstone made their mark with the Zeus range of power supplies featuring a strong single 12v rail and they aim to continue this trend of stable, solo rail units with their Decathlon series.

Features

Specifications

Silverstone’s take on the Decathlon

With the knowledge that single +12V rail power is the next generation power supply, SilverStone Technology introduces Decathlon series, offering enthusiasts more choices with single rail power selections to handle their system. Decathlon DA750 power supply hosts a full array of amenities like quad PCI-E 6 pin connectors, large and quiet 120mm cooling fan, greater than 80% efficiency, Active PFC, 100% modular cabling system, and so on. All these combined with powerful 60A single +12V rail output in DA750, gives enthusiasts the fearless confidence to take on power hungry systems of tomorrow.

A little about Silverstone

“Founded in 2003, SilverStone is an established leader in its field, with an elite team of engineers; we started our quest of providing products that create inspirations. We have since expanded the lines of products as well as types of products we produce, giving our customers a wide selection of choices.

With distribution centers in different areas of the globe, SilverStone products can be seen all over the world, not just for computer users but also for home entertainment use. Providing leisure with integration of advanced technologies that is functional and making them enjoyable to use

Bits and Box

The Decathlon is packaged in much the same way the Olympia is; a swish, black shell featuring specifications, features and some high res imagery of the product.

Along with the Decathlon and all its cables, you also receive some cable ties and the oft unused manual.

Just like the Olympia, the Decathlon 750w comes with a small 8pin to 8pin converter. Having done some searching around I had found out that the reason for this cable was down to people forcing their 8pin PCIE cables into server motherboards causing all sorts of problems. This connector makes it impossible to do that.

After having a chat with my rep. at Silverstone I was also told that the connector was also there to sort out an issue of Nvidia changing the specifications of their 8pin sockets. Silverstone have fixed this issue by providing you with this converter.

The Decathlon DA750

The power supply itself is very stylish and has a sexy matt black surface. The top features a beveled “Silverstone” along with the Silverstone logo which is very subtle and looks great.

The Decathlon is completely modular, and looks a little bare when nothing is plugged in. However, modular power supplies are the godsend of those who like a tidy case as they allow you to have only the cables you need inside.

For cooling the DA750 is fitted with rear honeycomb grills (read about the reasoning behind honeycomb grills in our glossary here) and a large 120mm fan that runs at low RPM to stay nice and quiet during operation.

The Decathlon 750 is designed to power the very high end systems and to do that you need plenty of PCIE connectors for those high end cards. Where most PSUs feature 2 6pin headers, the DA750 manages to have 4 (to accommodate SLI’d 8800GTX’s) and a single 8pin PCIE connector for future compatibility.

All the cabling on the Decathlon comes with braided sleeving which is another feature aimed at the tidy case ‘d enthusiasts. This allows you to move your cables around without them getting caught or for fear of accidentally slicing one; it also makes them look a lot cooler too.

One downside of the cables was the lack of quick release molex cables; tut tut Silverstone.

Single 12v Rail

The DA750 comes equipped with a singular 12v 60A rail. To read about the reasoning behind this, check out our glossary entry here.

Testing

For testing power supplies, we get together the most power hungry of all our hardware, get it all plugged in and then test the rail’s outputs at idle and at load to check their stability. However, since this PSU is rather large in it’s wattage, we decided to use our hillbilly testing setup. This involves placing our AM2 and Conroe systems very near each other and having the Decathlon not only powering the entire C2D rig, but also the GPU, hard drives, CD drives and all fans from the AM2 rig.

Testing is performed using Asus Probe. A multimeter is used to check accuracy of readings.

The pieces of hardware that the Blue Storm 500w powered were:

Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 2.7ghz
Asus P5W DH Deluxe
MSI 8800GTS
x1950 Pro 512mb
2gb OCZ Special Ops. Urban Elite @ 900mhz
1x 36gb WD Raptor
2x 80gb WD Caviar SE
2x LG CD/DVD Writer combo.
3x 120mm Noiseblocker fans
2x 120mm Akasa fans

Results

The graph above shows just how stable this PSU is. Its rails were relatively tight with only the 12v straying away from the magic “12.0” by a tenth of a volt. However, all the rails were very stable with 0.05v being the maximum that any rail wavered during testing.

Size

The DA750 is a little bigger than most power supplies, and those with incredibly small cases may have some difficulty with fitting it. However those with standard towers shouldn’t have any problems.

Noise

Throughout testing the Decathlon was incredibly quiet, only being audible if you placed your ear near the case and even in then it is still very quiet. Two thumbs up for noise levels.

Cost

This PSU goes for around £120 which is not too hectic when you are looking for power supplies of this size. However the price is a bit higher than those of equivalent PSUs made by less well know companies but you get you’re money’s worth with Silverstone.

Conclusion

The Decathlon DA750 is a high quality PSU from top to bottom. It has fantastically stable rails, a sexy black shell and braided, modular cabling. The only improvements I could think of would be if Silverstone added quick release molex cables and perhaps made it a little shorter so that the smaller cases could take it. The bottom line is that this is one of the best high end power supplies out there. It will power anything you can throw at it, it looks good and has features full to the brim; buying this PSU will not leave you disappointed.

I’d like to thank our sponsors Silverstone for providing us with this PSU.

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