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
Hot Test Results (~45°C Ambient)
Switching to hot box testing, as expected, the Dark Power Pro 12 1500W PSU faces a very small efficiency drop when the ambient temperature is very high. That is because the active components of the unit are extremely efficient and resilient to thermal stressing, otherwise it would be practically impossible to output this kind of power with such a platform at all. The average efficiency reduction is 0.6%, with a marginally higher drop of 0.7% at 100% load.
Despite the relatively high conversion efficiency of the Dark Power Pro 12, the platform still needs to cope with very high raw thermal losses inside a very hot operating environment. Thermally, the Dark Power Pro 12 performed better than what we initially hoped for. Although the internal temperatures of the unit are always high – going higher than 70°C on the major active components – the temperature is not greatly affected in relation to the unit’s load. As such, even at maximum load, the Dark Power Pro 12 still copes well with the thermal losses and keeps on operating seamlessly.
The key element behind the Dark Power Pro 12’s ability to withstand such thermal losses in such a hot environment is the Silent Wings cooling fan that, under these operating conditions, is anything but silent. The thermal control circuitry of the PSU is reading the very high temperature and reacts to it by putting the fan to work, boosting its speed up to 100% before the load is even 50% of the unit’s rated capacity. The result of this approach may be a very loud PSU but, apparently, Be Quiet!’s engineers knew better than sacrificing reliability over acoustics.
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Calin - Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - link
40dB of noise inside an "under-the-desk" case seems extravagantly quiet. It is comparable to an RTX 3080Ti, and lower than the AMD Wraith at max.Maybe you looked at "hot = 45 Celsius = 113 Fahrenheit" levels? 52 decibels is indeed the level of sound of a headphone.
dqniel - Wednesday, January 12, 2022 - link
42+ dB at one meter away is absolutely not "extravagantly quiet". It's quite loud if you're after a silent computer build.dqniel - Wednesday, January 12, 2022 - link
Also, I don't know where you got that 52dB is the sound of a headphone, but you're wrong. Headphones frequently get up to around 130dB (obviously very unsafe) and so artificial safety limits to 85dB and/or 100dB are often implemented.drajitshnew - Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - link
considering that they already have 2 transformers why not make it into a 750+ 750W power supply. They already have capacitors that provide a hold up for 1500 watts.that would give higher efficiency for part load.
The_Assimilator - Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - link
Very strange decision to design and produce a 1kW+ PSU in today's market.dqniel - Wednesday, January 12, 2022 - link
You mean the market where more and more people are using power-hungry GPUs for computation? And the market where CPUs' power limits keep getting higher and higher?firefoxx04 - Friday, January 14, 2022 - link
How is that strange? Plenty of people run 2+ GPUs with high core count CPUs. I agree that this PSU probably has no place in a gaming build, but gamers are not most of the market.Cellar Door - Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - link
Isn't it a terrible idea to invest into a high end PSU right now - considering that ATX 5.0 spec calls for a 16pin PCIEX power connector for the upcoming generation of GPUs..12+4sense pins that will allow the PSU to handle 3x the rated GPU max power draw spikes. So 1800watts for a 600watts top of the line RTX 4000.
Oxford Guy - Wednesday, January 12, 2022 - link
Having an ATX 5 spec is a terrible idea.Let’s stick with tiny GPU fans that blast a case full of hot air going the wrong direction.
Genius!
Bobsy - Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - link
Another excellent review from Fyll! Cheers!