Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 650W & 850W PSU Review
by E. Fylladitakis on February 2, 2015 11:40 AM ESTDark Power Pro 10 650W Cold Test Results
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.
Considering its 80 Plus Gold certification, the performance of the Dark Power Pro 10 650W unit at room temperature is good yet not extraordinary. The average conversion efficiency of the power supply within the nominal load range (20% to 100%) is 90.9%, peaking at 92.3% at 50% load, meeting its 80 Plus Gold certification. It is however worth noting that the efficiency of this PSU plummets when the load is lower than 80 Watts. All PSUs generally are inefficient if the load is below 20% of their rated capacity, but the Dark Power Pro 10 650W is less efficient than most similar products, with its efficiency taking a dive down to 72.5% at 5% load.
The Dark Power Pro 10 650W is well balanced between cooling performance and acoustics. The SilentWings fan remains quiet at low to medium loads and becomes clearly audible only if the load is greater than 300 Watts. After that point, each increase of the load sacrifices some acoustic comfort, as the fan will gradually speed up in order to cope with the increasing cooling demands.
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Howard - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
phase != fazeHrel - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
44db at 500W? Seasonic blows this crap out of the water. I'm really surprised, normally stuff made in Germany is top quality.ShieTar - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
be quiet! were one of the first companies to provide silent components. They had the top quality a decade ago, but the Asian and American companies caught up in the meantime.Also, 50% of the German population have a significantly lower income now than they had 15 years ago, so be quiet! started to put more focus on having cheap products as well. That should not have affected their top-line, but apparently it does.
Cpt. Obvious - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link
I've owned one PSU from be quiet! It was about a decade ago and they were one of the few companies that tried to market quiet components at the time. Unfortunately that PSU didn't last long. After only a few months it blew up and I ended up replacing it with a top of the line CoolerMaster unit. This was a bad move as CM just didn't know anything about the design of PSU's at this time. So less than a month later I had another dead PSU and took to frankenstein together a few PSU's I had laying about about just so I got my machine up and running. The day after I got myself a Zippy/EMACS 460W PSU. (HP2-6460P)If you've never heard of them it's fine. They have next to no presence in the retail market, but are very well known for their server PSU's. If you read between the lines you will realize that this means they are built like tanks and about as stealthy as a M1 Abrams. It also cost about twice as much as the retail brand PSU's but they are nearly impossible to kill and can deliver way more current than what's specified, and they are still in production today...
sawe - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link
Main reason for buying one these are low noise and fan controller. There was no mention of the controller ?