InsaneTekSometimes we all go a little mad

power supplies

E-Power Silent Engine Tiger 650W

· by John Chen
Manufacturer: E-Power · Price at review: $169.99 (≈$291 in 2026)

Introduction

Modular power supplies are becoming quite popular these days. Even overclocking enthusiasts are slowly migrating over to these modular power supplies for easy cable management. While performance might not be up to par compared to a regular power supply, the newer releases by SilverStone and Enermax have proven that modular units can still be robust. I love my SilverStone ST60F so much that I slapped it into my personal gaming rig, powering numerous hard drives, a highly overclocked CPU, and a blazing Geforce 7800 GT. I trusted the performance of the Enermax and used it for a computer build for a friend of mine. It all worked out very well.

When I reviewed the SilverStone ST60F, it was the highest wattage modular power supply around. That is all going to change right now with E-Power’s latest Silent Engine Tiger. Not many of you will think of E-Power as a well known source for power supplies, but they have been producing some of the most reliable units around. Much like Raidmax and OCZ, E-Power power supplies are manufactured by Topower, a popular power supply manufacturer.

E-Power Silent Engine Tiger 650W Package

I was fairly surprised when I saw Enermax’s bundle for their Liberty power supplies. I never expected a power supply to come with cool little accessories like a lanyard and a small bag to hold all your extra cables. It is certainly not a big deal if a power supply did not come with it, though. E-Power provided some screws, an AC adapter, a simple user’s manual, and some zip ties in their package. The zip ties are a nice touch and help when you need to tidy up your cable clutter.

E-Power Silent Engine Tiger 650W External

The housing of the Silent Engine Tiger 650W is exceptionally shiny and comes with a mirror finish. Such appeal is a love and hate relationship for me. I love the way it looks, but it always ends up with countless and endless fingerprints. Like the majority of modular power supplies, the Silent Engine Tiger is cooled with a large 120mm fan. The use of this large fan is ideal due to the high airflow and low noise output, although I tend to like the push-pull design with two 80mm fans. There are square shaped ventilation ports at the back that allow hot air to exit the power supply. Although they are not shaped like honeycombs, it still provides a great deal of openings to lower restrictions. At the front side is the location of all the cable connectors. There is a sticker label to the side that shows where each connector goes. One of the great things about the Silent Engine Tiger is that unlike all the other modular power supplies where the power cables are port sensitive, the Silent Engine Tiger allows any of the PCI-E cables, SATA cables, and Molex cables to be plugged into any of the seven 6pin ports.

E-Power Silent Engine Tiger 650W Internal

One great thing about Topower manufactured power supplies is that it comes with beefy heatsinks to help dissipate the released heat. Raidmax and OCZ power supplies we reviewed in the past were well equipped with big black heatsinks with multiple fins. The internals of the Silent Engine Tiger looks quite weak. The PCB used took up roughly half the space provided! I found it quite disappointing to see that such a large housing was used and the components inside were quite miniscule. The heatsinks used to cool the capacitors and inductors are quite small as well. They are very thin and are nothing like the ones found inside OCZ PowerStream power supplies.

Connectors

Since the PSU comes with quite a high wattage rating, support for SLI is expected. The Silent Engine Tiger comes with two PCI-E connectors to power your PCI-E video cards. The cool thing about the PCI-E power cables is that it is sleeved in mesh and looks very cool. The purpose is to reduce EMI interference, but I am doubtful that it really provides any help. There are four SATA connectors for your hard drives, which is adequate for a typical gaming/enthusiast system. For your regular peripherals, there are six 4pin Molex connectors and a single floppy connector. The native 24pin ATX cable allows the extra 4pins to slide off if you want to use the power supply for older motherboards. The 12v CPU dedicated power cable comes natively in an eight pin design, which accommodates server motherboards. You can split it in half so that you can plug the 4pin 12v into a regular desktop motherboard. One good cable inclusion is the fan-only connectors. There are four fan-only connectors to power fans with 4pin and 3pin headers. With the exception of the fan-only cables, all the cables are nicely sleeved in black mesh.

Specifications

While the internal components may look a bit cheesy, the specifications of the Silent Engine Tiger does not look so bad. The power supply comes with dual 12v rails with 20A on each rail. The 5v receives a hefty 45A while the 3.3v receives a mediocre 28A. The overall specifications do not look so bad.

The Silent Engine Tiger comes with all the common power protections found in power supplies.

I could not find any detailed information on the 120mm fan, but it was fairly quiet throughout the entire testing process.

Testing Setup and Method

Test Setup and Method:

Running Stock:

Running Overclocked:

Testing the power supply is a tedious task. Like cooling products, the “proper” testing method is long and strenuous. It involves high end equipment and testing materials that we simply cannot get our hands on. A simple proper testing method would be to test the wattage draw from the AC outlet, voltage rail fluctuations, wattage fluctuations under high operating temperatures, power efficiency, and the power supply’s reaction to low input voltage. But because this site is dedicated more to overclocking, we’ll check for voltage fluctuations in an overclocked environment. After all, that is what overclockers generally care about.

Results:

To test the power supply, a digital multimeter was used. For idle voltage readings, the system was left on the desktop not running any programs. For full load, the system ran 2 instances of CPU Burn-in, Prime95 torture test for maximum power consumption, PCMark2004 hard drive benchmark, and the Nature test in 3DMark2001SE. CPU Burn-in is a good program to maximize the CPU load. Despite the lacking internal components, the Silent Engine Tiger managed to keep the rails rather stable throughout the entire testing process.

Conclusion and Thoughts

For those who must own the highest wattage modular power supply, the Silent Engine Tiger is worth a look. It is currently the highest wattage rated modular power supply on the market, beating out SilverStone’s ST60F, and performs rather well at low noise levels. The only major gripe I have with the power supply is that the internals are too lacking for my liking. The PCB is small, which means the number of components used is at a minimum. Unlike many other hardware components, the power supply should use as many components as possible to help lower overall heat output, stabilize voltage rails, and keep the power supply from degrading over time. While the performance of the Silent Engine Tiger was respectable, knowing that the internals look like a cheap 350W power supply makes me feel uneasy. E-Power definitely has the potential to do much better. Let us hope that they improve their next modular power supply.

Pros:

  • Good performance
  • Nicely sleeved cables, especially the EMI PCI-E cables
  • Inclusion of fan-only adapters
  • Quiet
  • Competitively priced for a 650W PSU

Cons:

  • Internals look like a 350W PSU

We would like to thank E-Power for providing us the sample. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to hit us up in the forums. You can also check out more of our latest reviews on the front page.