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
Power Supply Quality
As part of our testing, we also check output parameters are within specifications, as well as voltage ripple and line noise.
| Main Output | ||||||||
| Load (Watts) | 302.18 W | 754.28 W | 1127.44 W | 1500.41 W | ||||
| Load (Percent) | 20.15% | 50.29% | 75.16% | 100.03% | ||||
| Amperes | Volts | Amperes | Volts | Amperes | Volts | Amperes | Volts | |
| 3.3 V | 2.34 | 3.39 | 5.85 | 3.38 | 8.77 | 3.36 | 11.69 | 3.35 |
| 5 V | 2.34 | 5.05 | 5.85 | 5.04 | 8.77 | 5.01 | 11.69 | 4.99 |
| 12 V | 23.38 | 12.08 | 58.46 | 12.06 | 87.69 | 12.02 | 116.91 | 12 |
| Line | Regulation (20% to 100% load) |
Voltage Ripple (mV) | |||||
| 20% Load | 50% Load | 75% Load | 100% Load | CL1 12V |
CL2 3.3V + 5V |
||
| 3.3V | 1.1% | 8 | 10 | 16 | 16 | 10 | 20 |
| 5V | 1.25% | 10 | 12 | 16 | 18 | 14 | 20 |
| 12V | 0.6% | 10 | 16 | 18 | 30 | 36 | 26 |
The electrical performance of the Dark Power Pro 12 is exceptional, and is exactly what we'd expect from a flagship product such as this. Our instruments recorded a maximum ripple of 30 mV on the combined 12V line - a mere quarter of the 120 mV recommended design limit on a unit that outputs 1.5 kW. The filtering on the 3.3V and 5V lines is very good but not as impressive, with 16 mV and 18 mV on the 3.3V and 5V lines respectively. Voltage regulation is exceptional on the 12V line, holding at 0.6% across the entire nominal load range. The 3.3V and 5V lines are less strictly regulated, at about 1.2% according to our readings.
Conclusion
Be Quiet! obviously designed and marketed the Dark Power Pro 12 as a prime example of their brand name – a halo product, a testament of the company’s ability to design and produce top-tier units. And while the company isn't looking to name competitors, Be Quiet! is clearly taking a shot at Corsair and their fully digital AX1600i, a design that many (ourselves included) consider to be the best consumer PSU ever made. To go against the AX1600i is a very ambitious and respectable move, especially considering that only a handful of companies have ever tried.
As a result, the 80Plus Titanium certified Dark Power Pro 12 1500W PSU is very impressive on paper. Yet our closer inspection and testing revealed that it is not quite on par with the fully digital AX1600i, both technologically and otherwise.
The electrical performance of the Dark Power Pro 12 is excellent. Yet it still feels inadequate in some ways. We would have been very impressed by the power quality of the Dark Power Pro 12 were it was a middle to high tier product, but as a flagship product, there's no reason to expect anything but the best from such a PSU. The filtering of the voltage lines is excellent and they are very well regulated, especially when taking the very high 1500 Watt power output into account, but it still is not on par with the ludicrous performance figures that a fully digital platform can deliver. The digital-analog hybrid platform from CWT also has other electrical performance limitations, which are apparent on the power quality of the analogically controlled minor lines and the inability to reach very high-efficiency figures when powered from a 230 VAC source.
Still, it is worthwhile to point out that this platform is the only high power output platform currently available in the North American and European markets that offers multiple virtual 12V rails. Whether the presence of multiple rails is a good thing or not is a topic for debate – multiple rails are safer, as the protection circuitry will not allow a single cable or connector to draw the entirely of the unit’s power output and be damaged. But, on the other hand, balancing the load between the rails is necessary. To that end, we would strongly suggest users keep the power supply in its default mode and only switch overclocking mode on (and let the Dark Power Pro 12 monitor its 12V output as a single power rail) if they face trouble powering a very power-hungry device from a single connector.
The thermal and acoustics performance of the Dark Power Pro 12 are both better than we initially expected from such a powerful unit, even from one bearing an 80Plus Titanium efficiency certification. Under normal operating circumstances, the Dark Power Pro 12 should remain almost dead silent, as it takes a very high load for the thermal control circuitry to even bother speeding up the cooling fan. Otherwise, if the unit finds itself operating in an adverse environment and/or is very heavily loaded, it will protect itself by sacrificing acoustics over reliability.
Finally, it's clear that Be Quiet! has invested a significant amount of effort in order to make the Dark Power Pro 12 aesthetically unique – a PSU that stands out from the rest at first sight but without compromising the company’s profile of elegance and subtleness. The designers developed a unique layered chassis with a brushed metallic exterior shell and an equally unique metal mesh fan cover, which makes for a product that radiates quality without being extravagant. And this high level of design quality for the Dark Power Pro 12 is not just at a superficial level; Be Quiet has used top-quality components on the inside as well, down to the least important capacitor. Fittingly, Be Quiet! backs the Dark Power Pro 12 with a 10-year manufacturer warranty.
The Dark Power Pro 12 1500W unit is a very powerful PSU, capable of driving almost anything, but also giving it a very limited market potential, especially in the current PC market where video cards are scarce and extremely expensive. It also has to take on the venerable Corsair AX1600i, the performance reference of any top-tier PSU. Only a handful of companies have even dared to try and take on the Flextronics-based AX1600i, which underscores the value in (and confidence of) Be Quiet!’s engineers for even trying. Still, the digital-analog hybrid platform from CWT cannot outperform the AX1600i in terms of performance, nor make Flextronics engineers feel uneasy at all.
The overall performance of the Dark Power Pro 12 is great, but it's just not enough to steal the crown of the best consumer PC PSU ever made. Nonetheless, Be Quiet! has a massive advantage when it comes to overall value – the Dark Power Pro 12 1500W currently retails for $450, which is half the price of Corsair’s AX1600i. So for builders who do need a 1500W+ PSU but do not care about having the best possible performance, the Dark Power Pro 12 shines in its own way as a far more economical choice.
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zodiacfml - Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - link
industry should be recycling used server power supplies which can easily perform as good.Silver5urfer - Wednesday, January 12, 2022 - link
Thanks for this review.Unfortunately I already bought a $300 Seasonic TX-1000 PSU for my 10th gen and 3090 build. I hope it lasts me long time, I do not plan to get any new GPUs since games are not worth at all nowadays due to political aspects and poor quality with no passion. But it would have been nice if the PSU supports the next gen GPUs for the high refresh rate gaming in the future, which are going to be 500-600W TDP with insane spikes demanding a new PSU over 1200W.
This one got that 12 Pin connectors which is a massive improvement over existing PSUs by a huge factor. But looks like they did not include the 4 pins for sensing the load. ASUS Loki and Thor PSUs are having that, also I think Corsair might as well release a damn 2000W PSU. Since SLI is dead I really do not think the market would be great for these so they will be super expensive. Also I think by 2023 CES we will definitely have a completely new wave of PSUs with new PCIe connectors and more features, I hope there is a PSU with 1200+W capability and completely passive. I would pay top dollar if that exists.
Upcoming Zen 4 / Raptor Lake - DDR5 new ICs, PCIe5.0 boards with more I/O like M.2 slots with new PCIe and then new GPUs with more than 500W TDP this will become uber expensive. On top we have a huge crunch of GPUs since 24+ months, the market will have to adopt once the Crypto crashes or mining fades.
bunkle - Wednesday, January 12, 2022 - link
"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."This statement looks incorrect / inverted. The graph presented would suggest that higher efficiency is gained when running at 230VAC as per usual with most PSUs?
Ryan Smith - Thursday, January 13, 2022 - link
The 80 Plus standards have higher efficiency requirements at 230v than 115v, owing to the fact that DC-DC switching is more efficient at higher voltages.For 80 Plus Titanium, for example, you need 96% efficiency at a 50% load for 230v, versus 94% efficiency for 115v. It's a difference of just 2 percentage points, but that's a 50% increase in allowed energy losses.
So as it happens here, you can just barely meet the looser 115v standards, but fail to meet the tighter 230v standards.
bunkle - Tuesday, January 18, 2022 - link
I see, thanks for the clarification. With that in mind the statement is still incorrect. It doesn't reach 80 Plus Titanium's 94% efficiency at 50% 115VAC only 93%. I think that's where my confusions stemmed.For easier comprehension in future, it might be nice to have the efficiency points (10,20,50,100%) for the claimed rating on the same graph.
Xajel - Thursday, January 13, 2022 - link
I wonder when we will be able to see the first round of PCIe 5.0 PSU reviews.What about the 12V0 standard? will these also have this or this one will take longer time duo to incompatibility with the current standard (unless they're using a doughter-PSU).
RNDRer - Friday, January 14, 2022 - link
I understand the love for the venerable AX1600i that a reviewer who received a test unit directly from Corsair would have for it. By those numbers, it is no doubt the best that's out there.What those of us in the high performance desktop compute niche have seen, however, is that Corsair sends golden samples to reviewers and the retail units don't live up to even Corsair's stated output claims. In practice, the AX1600i is only a 1400W PSU at best and will usually power cycle at loads as low as 1450W. Changing over to a 1600W EVGA unit almost always solves the mystery resets for folks who want to run more than ~1100W of GPU (4xA6000 will typically trip a retail AX1600i after a few minutes).
I'm curious what we will see from retail Dark Power Pro units. If they are as good as the sponsored review units, then they might actually be a valid alternative to the AX1600i despite the lower marketing specs.
playtech1 - Tuesday, January 18, 2022 - link
I can see a need for this kind of PSU - my own experience with a Corsair AX760 and a Corsair HX1200 were that they could not handle the spikes from a 3090 plus 16 core Skylake-X CPU. It's true you don't (usually) get sustained loads on both GPU and CPU, but when both were stressed at the same time it would trigger OCP with a nasty black screen restart.AX1600i was the RMA replacement and that works very well, albeit it has a slightly annoying fan balancing cycle on startup. There are probably lower powered PSUs that are less enthusiastic at triggering OCP, but my experience of Corsair PSUs with a 3090 is that you need a lot more headroom than you might think.
NeatOman - Wednesday, February 9, 2022 - link
1500 watts is dead close to the 1800 watts max of a 15a outlet if you account for efficiency loss. With that said, I've seen 200-300 watt computers have power issues from a seeming good outlet ;-)I "only" have a 850 watt PC Power & Cooling PSU (can output 850 watts under 80 gold) but I've made sure that my outlet was in good condition by simply checking for a warm cable from the wall. But also with a kill-a-watt to watch for voltage drop. A bad/poor connection WILL cause a squeezing point where the power has to jump though a small contact patch where it causes heat. I see it all the time in the businesses I do work in, hot cables running machines that have issues. Sometimes so hot the outlet starts to melt! Simple correction was to replace the outlet and plug and BOOM! no boom lol.
Point is, the power cable shouldn't be getting "hot".. although luke warm seems to be ok at max 1800 watt load. When pulling that much power to sensitive equipment you WILL see differences from different outlets EVEN if all of them are new, installed by a professional. Then there's also the health/quality of the transformers on your street and termination in your home lol
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