Cooler Master X Silent Edge 80 PLUS Platinum 850w ATX 3.0 PSU Review

TweakTown's Rating: 94%

The Bottom Line

Cooler Master's X Silent Ege series of PSUs are all passively cooled. They perform excellently and are silent, but they are quite expensive for the cost of entry.

Pros

• Passive cooling
• 80 PLUS Platinum rating
• 15-year warranty, the most extended period in the industry
• Industrial-grade Infineon ICs
• Heatpiped distribution for optimal cooling

Cons

• $399 price
• Must be mounted in a specific position
• 850w model might not be as future-proof ready for upcoming high-end RTX 5000 series GPUs

Should you buy it?

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Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

Cooler Master has sent over one of its new X Silent Edge series of ATX 3.1 PSUs, this one being in the 850-watt 80 PLUS Platinum flavor. What is so special about this ATX 3.1 PSU? Well, it's entirely passively cooled. No fan means no noise.

The X Silent Edge series of PSUs and its more powerful brother, the 1100w model, features a passively cooled design with integrated heatpipes to cool the Infineon ICs on the active bridge rectifier effectively. MSRP was recently dropped to $399, so the cost of entry to the passively cooled world is not cheap.

A quick look at the Cooler Master X Silent Edge Platinum 850w ATX 3.0 PSU

Why don't we look at the X Silent Edge 850w ATX 3.1 PSU and see what features and numbers it brings?

Best Deals: Cooler Master X Silent Edge Platinum 850 Full Modular PSU

	Today	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$549.99 USD	$549.99 USD	$549.99 USD	Buy
	$549.99 USD	$549.99 USD	$549.99 USD	Buy
	$549.99 USD	$549.99 USD	$549.99 USD	Buy
	$549.99 USD	$549.99 USD	$549.99 USD	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 2/5/2025 at 4:48 am CST - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission from any sales.

Packaging

The X Silent Edge has an all-black approach, starting with the exterior packaging. Mysterious, right? Cooler Master and Infineon branding in the upper left corner, the X Silent Edge Platinum 850/850w with the saying "A Fanless Design," and the 80 PLUS Platinum rating in the lower right corner.

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Moving around to one side are more features that Cooler Master wants you to know about: a 12V 2x6 90-degree connector, fully modular design, 15-year warranty, 80 PLUS Platinum rating, ATX3.1 / PCIe 5.1 ready, Master CTRL software, and lastly, two logos for the environment. If more information is desired, a QR code is also in the lower left corner.

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On the backside of the exterior packaging are all the power ratings, typical efficiency, 80 PLUS rating, operating temperature, protections, dimensions, output connectors, AC input, DC output, and total power. Also present is all the contact/product information should the end user need to contact Cooler Master for any warranty issues.

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Opening up the side sleeve shows some nice attention to detail, starting off with a thank you note and a detailed illustration installation guide on how to install the X Silent Edge PSU. A user guide was also supplied.

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Next, Cooler Master has placed all the X Silent Edge PSU cabling in this nice vinyl storage bag.

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Inside that storage bag are all the cables for the X Silent Edge ATX 3.1 PSU.

Complete with:

• 1 ATX 24-Pin
• 1 EPS 4+4 Pin
• 1 EPS 8-Pin
• 12 SATA
• 4 4 Pin Peripheral
• 4 6+2 Pin PCIe
• 1 12V-2x6
• 1 USB 10P

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Cooler Master has placed a fabric sleeve around the X Silent Edge PSU instead of the industry norm of a clear plastic bag. This detail just screams excellent presentation and quality.

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Rounding things out for what is included with the X Silent Edge ATX 3.1 PSU is a few zip ties, velcro cable straps with Cooler Master branding, of course, and four installation screws.

Outside the Cooler Master X Silent Edge Platinum 850w ATX 3.1 PSU

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The outside of the X Silent Edge 850w is pretty much wide open, with a very well-ventilated mesh pattern to allow for the maximum amount of airflow possible. Cooler Master has also placed their logo in the center.

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The backside, which normally is not that exciting, is what the X Silent Edge PSU is all about: a massive heatsink with heatpipes that are all passively cooled. This heatsink is also continued up halfway on one of the sides, maximizing the cooling surface area.

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The modular cable input section of the X Silent Edge is laid out well. It has 6 8-pin PCIe/CPU connections, and the 12V-2x6 and 10P M/B connections are in the middle. Lastly, we come to the USB Protocol, PMBus, and Fan connectors on the top right, with 4 sets of 5-pin HDD/SATA/Peripheral connections. The final connection in the lower right is the 18P M/B connection.

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The X Silent Edge's power input has the typical C13 style input, power rocker switch, and hexagonal honeycomb mesh ventilation.

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The side of the PSU where most manufacturers place their sticker and Cooler Master is no different; it shows the 850w model name and other AC input and DC output wattages/voltages. The 80 PLUS Platinum rating is also present in the lower right corner.

Inside the Cooler Master X Silent Edge Platinum 850w ATX 3.1 PSU

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Opening up the X Silent Edge 850w, we usually look at the fan first. In this case, we will go straight to the overhead shot showing all the system components. The first thing I noticed was the large number of blacked-out heatsinks.

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Here is the VRM stage of the X Silent Edge, which has the VRM stage on a separate daughterboard next to the main capacitors.

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Here are the two main system capacitors. Not much is known about them, but looking at the Hardware Busters review for the 1100w model, which has 2x TDK B43641 (450V, 560uF each or 1120uF combined, 2000h @ 105°C), I can only assume that CM used something similar for the 850w model.

Test System, Installation, and Finished Product

PSU Test System

Final Thoughts

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Now, using the PSU test bench for this review, the CPU, which is the Ryzen 9 7950X, was set to 1.2v vcore to allow the CPU cores to stay at a 5GHz clock speed. The 16-core, 32-threaded CPU maintained a 5GHz clock during the test period, while the wattage ran up to a max of 193 watts but averaged out to about 189.5 watts. The AM5 motherboard used here is the B650 AORUS Elite AX, while the test RAM was from Patriot. Specifically, the Viper Venom runs at DDR5-5600M/t.

To control the GPU wattage, the NVIDIA RTX 3090 FE test GPU was power limited at 55% via the NVIDIA App. On average, the NVIDIA RTX 3090 FE drew on about 172.5 watts; however, it peaks at as high as 191 watts. The power drawn from the wall was measured using a Killawatt P3 digital electrical usage monitor, reading the total system wattage, which read between 415 and 455 watts during the testing, with the average usage being 435 watts.

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Cooler Master's software, Master CTRL, is connected directly to the motherboard via its own USB 2.0 header. This software simplifies everything and places all needed metrics into easy-to-understand percentage and wattage boxes. I particularly like the efficiency box, which stayed between 92% and 93% for most testing.

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Lastly, BenchLab was implemented recently to be included in our testing. Here, we see similar numbers to those of the Master CTRL software; however, slight differences are being placed between the PSU and the motherboard/GPU.

All testing was completed using Aida64 Engineer's System Stability Test version v7.35.7000 for over 8 hours; the ambient temperature was 23C. Other monitoring software used was HWiNFO64 v8.04-5470, BenchLab v1.0.0, TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.60.0, and CPU-Z 2.12.0.x64.

Putting a bow on this review, the X Silent Edge 850w is my first passively cooled PSU, but it's a top-notch unit. It's exceptionally well-built and puts up great solid numbers. Cooler Master's Master CTRL software is easy enough to use and puts up relative performance metrics. My only genuine concern is the future-proofing of an 850w PSU with today's demanding GPU power requirements. Reading the other day, I saw that the TGP for the up-and-coming NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPU is rumored to be 600 watts! That doesn't leave a lot of room for other components. As with most buyers, my other concern is the higher-than-normal price. While I know the cost of entry to a passively cooled PSU certainly isn't cheap.

However, looking at some feedback, myself included, for about half of the $400 price tag that Cooler Master is asking for the X Silent Edge 850w, one could have their pick of several 1000w 80 PLUS Platinum rated fan cooled ATX 3.0 PSUs from Corsair, bequiet!, Montech, and other brands. With that said, Cooler Master is currently the ONLY brand offering passively cooled ATX 3.1 PSUs on the market, so you will have to pay for that convenience if that's your prerogative.