Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W PSU Review

Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W PSU Conclusion

With the
release of the Silent Pro M2 1500W power supply, Cooler Master entered a segment
of the market where the company will not be facing much competition from other
manufacturers. On the other hand however very few users actually need 1500
Watts, which is why there are very few units capable of reaching that kind of
power output.

As
competition is very scarce, there are very few products to compare against this
particular unit. Considering the extremely long load range, the voltage regulation
figures were remarkable and, even though with a ripple of 74mV the figure seems
mediocre, ripple suppression also is excellent considering that the 12V line
had to handle 114A at maximum load. It would be very hard to get better
performance than this from a consumer-level product capable of supplying up to
1500 Watts worth of DC power. Efficiency wise, the 80Plus Silver certification
is not really special nowadays but it surely is very good for a product with
this kind of output.

When it
comes to thermal performance and acoustics, the situation is more complex. That
is because the Silent Pro M2 is being marketed as a low noise power supply; and
a low noise power supply it is, until the loads demand exceeds 1000W, after
which point the fans speed starts increasing nearly geometrically. The end
result is a power supply which is very quiet while the load remains below 60%
but also excessively loud if the load exceeds 80% of the units capacity. This
kind of behavior is natural, considering that even though the thermal losses of
the Silent Pro M2 are relatively low (it is 80Plus Silver certified anyway),
even that low losses percentage translates to a huge amount of energy while the
unit operates at 60%+ capacity.

Even though
we imagine that aesthetics are not the first priority of someone purchasing a
power supply with this kind of output, it definitely is an important factor for
todays enthusiasts. The dark, simplistic design of the Cooler Master Silent
Pro M2 1500W creates a subtle appearance which should match nearly every systems
visual theme. However, we would rather every cable of the power supply to be
black and flat or at least old-fashioned sleeved, since Cooler Masters
approach of making half of the wires all-black and leaving the other half
colored and sleeved made the Silent Pro M2 looking worse, not better.

The price
tag of $365.12 is certainly going to burn a small hole in the pocket of whoever
decides to buy this power supply. Still, this price should be only a small
fraction of the cost of the whole system, considering that a system which
requires such a power supply is now worth several thousands of US dollars.

Legit Bottom Line: The CM Silent Pro M2 1500W Power Supply Unit is nothing short of a mini
powerhouse, with a power output capable of feeding no less than six typical
home PCs. Clearly, this is not a product meant for the average Joe user but
reserved for those who are planning to build really extreme computers, such as Quad
SLI dual CPU systems. If you do possess or plan on building such a system, you
would find the overall performance of the Silent Pro M2 1500W power supply more
than satisfactory.