The Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 1500W PSU Review: Big Power
by E. Fylladitakis on January 10, 2022 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- PSUs
- be quiet!
- 1500W
- 80Plus Titanium
Cold Test Results (~22°C Ambient)
For the testing of PSUs, we are using high precision electronic loads with a maximum power draw of 2700 Watts, a Rigol DS5042M 40 MHz oscilloscope, an Extech 380803 power analyzer, two high precision UNI-T UT-325 digital thermometers, an Extech HD600 SPL meter, a self-designed hotbox and various other bits and parts. For a thorough explanation of our testing methodology and more details on our equipment, please refer to our How We Test PSUs - 2014 Pipeline post.
The “Overclocking mode” of the PSU that combines all virtual 12 V rails into a single 12 V rail was active throughout our testing, with the exception of the preliminary OCP tests that we perform routinely, which the Dark Power Pro 12 passed without issues.
The efficiency of the Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 12 1500W PSU is very high but not as high as we would have liked it to be. Although it meets the 80Plus Titanium certification requirements while the unit is powered from a 115 VAC source, it does so only only barely, with an average nominal load range (20% to 100% of the unit's capacity) efficiency of just 92.3%. When powered from a 230 VAC source, in our testing the Dark Power Pro 12 1500W PSU does not even get near the 80Plus Titanium certification requirements.
As the load increases beyond 1000 Watts, the thermal control circuitry will start increasing the speed of the fan at an exponential rate. That is a very reasonable design approach, as a gaming PC drawing more than 1000 Watts isn't going to be able to remain quiet anyhow. Especially as the noise from the fans of power-hungry components will most definitely overshadow the single 135 mm fan of the PSU.
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SirDragonClaw - Thursday, January 13, 2022 - link
I have multiple machines running 3090s with 12900Ks and a few with Ryzen 5900x's and 3080s. And all the machines use 650 or 700 watt PSU's and have had zero issues even with multi week sustained rendering loads on both the cpu and gpu. People need to stop fear-mongering about transient loads when it isn't a problem.haukionkannel - Monday, January 17, 2022 - link
The single 3090ti needs minimum of 1000w power supply... So yeah it is "useful" even with one GPU... though 3090ti is extremely expensive (as all Nvidia new versions of 3000 series) and not much faster than normal 3090... But that 1000w requirements is real, so if you oc also you cpu... 1500w is not overkill... if you have newer $6000-7000 to buy PC of that scale.icedeocampo - Tuesday, January 18, 2022 - link
Mining is one.And also for those who load their machines all of the time - they'd want it to be at the most efficient load for the PSUs which around 50% or so.
HarryVoyager - Monday, January 31, 2022 - link
RTX 40 and RDNA3 top end cards are expected to be exceptionally power hungry.In particular, because RNDA3 is expected to use chiplets to significantly increase its processing power, and nVidia's won't be ready yet, nVidia is expected to respond by running their top cards very far past their power/performance sweet spot. Rumors are the 4090 may require two of the nVidia 12 pin power connectors.
Of course, there is a limit to what they can actually do. While people say they won't mind a 450W-500W GPU if it performs, the heat load is going to be... interesting... to say the least.
Mr.Vegas - Monday, February 7, 2022 - link
1.Most PSU have peak efficiency at 50% load.2. Heat: when you have huge PSU that runs below its max power it will never get hot nor turn on the fan, im running Digital 1200W PSU myself so it only spins the fun when it gets to high load like 600-700W
3. People still but Threadrippers [and soon Intel HEDT] and build home Servers
4. People that mine
Belldandy - Monday, January 10, 2022 - link
Workstations can still have multiple gpu's and mining rigs as well.Also the coming rtx4090 is rumored to consume 600watts. So a 1.5kw psu will ideally be loaded between 50-75% continuously so that's quite suitable.
austinsguitar - Monday, January 10, 2022 - link
vary disappointing temperature/noise performance honestly. This is a pass imo.meacupla - Monday, January 10, 2022 - link
afaik, this temperature/fan speed curve is pretty normal on >1200W PSUsaustinsguitar - Monday, January 10, 2022 - link
idk man. 40db at 1200watts sounds pretty ehh to me.meacupla - Wednesday, January 12, 2022 - link
Well, if you don't like the fan curve, then get a lower power PSU, because these >1200W PSUs are all like that. There's just a physical limitation with current technology used in PSUs.