be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850W Review
Category : PSUs
Published by Lukas Mühle on 12.11.13
With the Dark Power Pro 10 850W BeQuiet offers a high end 850W PSU that achieved the 80 Plus Platinum certification. Its insides come from Seasonic (OEM), which certainly can be considered as a plus while the suggested retail price is set at 220 CHF, roughly 183 Euro.
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Presentation
The new be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 comes packed in a quite eye-catching box that easily shows all its features while the packaging itself is perfect as the PSU is well protected by plenty of foam. Modular cables are placed in a separate cardboard box.
The bundle is as you would expect from a PSU in this class. It features fan header cables, velcro straps, zip ties, screws, manual, power cable and a bracket with the "overclocking key" switch which we will talk about in detail a bit later in the review.
The unit (PSU) itself is well built and you can see the high manufacturing quality even from the picture. Of course, no less was expected from be quiet! and the PSU in this range. The unit also comes with a rubber end caps that should help with isolating any vibrations coming from the PSU and it features quite a unique be quiet! fan grill. The fan below it is the Silent Wings P10, model BQT T13525-XF20, a 135mm fan rated at 0.38A and 2000RPM. The unique feature is an ability to connect and regulate up to four case fans directly via the Dark Power Pro 10 850W PSU.
| Page 1 - Presentation |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Delivery / Specs |
| Page 4 - A Look Inside |
| Page 5 - Input/Output Power and Efficiency |
| Page 6 - Result Analysis and Discussion |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |
Photo Gallery
| Page 1 - Presentation |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Delivery / Specs |
| Page 4 - A Look Inside |
| Page 5 - Input/Output Power and Efficiency |
| Page 6 - Result Analysis and Discussion |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |
Delivery and Specifications
The Dark Power Pro 10 is a semi-modular PSU type which means that the ATX 24-pin cable is directly attached to the PSU.
Cables |
|
| Cable | Length |
| 1 x ATX 20+4 pin | 60 cm |
| 1 x EPS/ATX 12V (8 & 4+4) pin | 70 cm |
| 1 x EPS/ATX 12V 4+4 pin | 70 cm |
| 1 x EPS/ATX 12V 4 pin | 70 cm |
| 3 x PCI-E 6+2 + 6+2 pin | 60 cm |
| 1x PCI-E 6 pin | 60 cm |
| 1 x 2x SATA + 2x Molex + 1x Floppy | 60, 75, 90, 105 cm |
| 2 x 3x SATA | 60, 75, 90 cm |
| 1 x 3x Molex | 60, 75, 90 cm |
| 1 x 2x Molex + 1 x Floppy | 60, 75, 90 cm |
| 1 x 1x Molex | 60 cm |
| 1 x 1x Molex | 50 cm |
| 1 x 1x SATA | 50 cm |
The amount of supplied cables that you get with the Dark Power Pro 10 850W is excellent for this power rating. The modular cables provided are top quality, especially the PCI-Express and EPS/ATX cables that are AWG 16 type, quite high-end and quite rare to find with PSUs these days.
Specifications |
|||
| Voltage | Current | Power | |
| + 3.3 V | 25 A | 150 Watt | 850 Watt (Total) |
| + 5.0 V | 25 A | ||
| + 12 V | 70 A | 840 Watt | |
| - 12 V | 0.5 A | 6 Watt | |
| + 5 Vsb | 3.0 A | 15 Watt | |
The design of the Dark Power Pro 10 is based on a single 12V rail with a rather impressive 70Amps. However this 12V rail is splitted into four rails in distribution and all four rails are OCP protected individually. In our opinion and experience, it is quite good that be quiet! decided to split the single rail into four different ones, at least for security reasons, and it can be overridden via the included "overclocking key" switch.
Unfortunately, it appears that the four rails are too heavily OCP protected as even with normal usage, it appears that the device goes into OCP status (for example: a 45A rail providing four PCIe 8-pin connectors and connected to two Radeon HD 6990 cards on them makes the device to go into OCP). We would be quite more happy if the be quiet! provided a bit more information regarding the OCP.
The PSU has four 12V rails, two providing 30A and two providing 45A per rail. The be quiet! Dark Power 10 has a so called "overclocking key" switch which simply disables the individual OCP and turns the PSU into a classic single rail design. It simply groups the four individual 12V rails into a single 12V rail but also provides additional risk, although not that great as it would be on a 1'250W PSU.
The Dark Power Pro 10 850W has been 80Plus Platinum certified. This means that the efficiency of the PSU should be above 90% at 20% load, above 92% at 50% load and above 89% at 100% load.
The full feature list includes:
- 80Plus Platinum
- OVP, UVP, OCP, SCP, OPP, OTP
- Dimensions (W x H x D): 150 mm x 86 mm x 190 mm
- 135 millimeter fan
- Warranty: 5 Years
- Price: 220 CHF
| Page 1 - Presentation |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Delivery / Specs |
| Page 4 - A Look Inside |
| Page 5 - Input/Output Power and Efficiency |
| Page 6 - Result Analysis and Discussion |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |
A Look Inside
The first hint that this is a high quality PSU comes from the first look inside the unit due to its exceptional design and a quality chassis. Right at the Input there is a YO15T1 (250V, 15A, CX = 0.1uF, CY= 3300pF*2, Common Mode (CM choke) = 2*0.3uH) from Yunpen Electronic. At the PCB the transient filtering stage continues with two X, four Y, a CM and DM chokes as well as four MOVs (Metal-Oxid-Varistor). Additionally there is an NTC Thermistor for inrush current limitation. A mechanical relays shorts the NTC Thermistor for normal operation. The transient filtering stage is well done and we certainly have not seen many PSUs with such an extensive input filtering.
Two GBJ 2506 (25A) are used for rectification. The PFC Booster consists of two IPB60R125CP Mosfets (650V, 0.125Ohm, 25A) and one SCS110AG (600V, 10A, Qc 16nC) SiC Schottky Diode. The APFC is controlled by the NCP1654 (54B65) from ON Semiconductor. The NCP1654 has a gate driver performance of 1.5A. This PSU has two APFC capacitors from Nippon Chemi-Con (KMR series; 390uF, 420V, 105C each). Four IPP60R199CP (650V, 0.199Ohm, 16 A) Mosfets are used on the primary side of the LLC resonance converter. The LLC resonance converter is controlled by a CM6901. The primary side of this PSU is rock solid, especially the costly transient filtering stage and the high end Japanese Nippon Chemi-Con Capacitors are excellent.
On the secondary side four BSC018N04LS (40V, 1.8mOhm, 100A) MOSFETs do the 12V rectification. Those MOSFETs are definitely high quality ones.
What we definitely appreciate is the fact that be quiet! makes heavy use of the high end Japanese Nippon Chemi-Con capacitors on the secondary side. In fact all capacitors we see are from Nippon Chemi-Con with a 105°C rating. The Dark Power Pro 10 can be considered as an extremely high-end PSU and we certainly congratulate be quiet! on it.
| Page 1 - Presentation |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Delivery / Specs |
| Page 4 - A Look Inside |
| Page 5 - Input/Output Power and Efficiency |
| Page 6 - Result Analysis and Discussion |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |
Input/Output Power and Efficiency
| Page 1 - Presentation |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Delivery / Specs |
| Page 4 - A Look Inside |
| Page 5 - Input/Output Power and Efficiency |
| Page 6 - Result Analysis and Discussion |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |
Result Analysis and Discussion
Efficiency 115V |
||||
| Load | Pin(W) | Pout(W) | PF | Efficiency |
| 20 % | 190.08 | 173.62 | 0.9869 | 91.34 % |
| 50 % | 469.00 | 432.86 | 0.9970 | 92.30 % |
| 100 % | 957.80 | 860.36 | 0.9981 | 89.83 % |
The 80Plus Platinum certification requirements (90% - 92% - 89%) are surpassed especially at 20% Load. The full load efficiency is a bit higher at 230V AC. This is the case with most of PSUs today and it mainly originates from the reason of lower losses in the AC filtering stage and the PFC at 230V AC.
Output Stability |
|||
| Load | Rail | Loading(A) | Output(V) |
| 20 % | 5V | 1.99 | 5.00 |
| 3.3V | 2.00 | 3.35 | |
| 12V | 12.27 | 12.09 | |
| 5VSB | 0.53 | 5.04 | |
| 50 % | 5V | 5.03 | 4.97 |
| 3.3V | 5.01 | 3.32 | |
| 12V | 31.20 | 31.20 | |
| 5VSB | 1.32 | 5.04 | |
| 100 % | 5V | 9.10 | 4.91 |
| 3.3V | 9.08 | 3.27 | |
| 12V | 63.63 | 11.98 | |
| 5VSB | 2.64 | 4.97 | |
The voltage regulation on this PSU is very good. It makes use of a DC-DC topology. This means, that the Dark Power Pro 10 850W is mainly a 12V PSU and then generates its 5 and 3.3V from 12V. This is a modern approach, and since the load is mainly on 12V it makes a lot of sense. For almost any PSU which makes use of this topology crossload tests do not present a problem at all.
| Noise | |
| Load | |
| 20 % | Noiseless |
| 50 % | Silent |
| 100 % | Audible |
The noise levels on the Dark Power Pro 10 850W are quite reasonable as it is completely noiseless at 20% load, silent at 50% but also audible at 100% but far from noisy.
| Noise/Ripple | |
| Voltage | Noise/Ripple Vpp |
| 5V | 0.015 |
| 12V | 0.025 |
| 3.3V | 0.012 |
| +5VSB | 0.011 |
The noise/ripple values are very good and way below the threshold.
| Page 1 - Presentation |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Delivery / Specs |
| Page 4 - A Look Inside |
| Page 5 - Input/Output Power and Efficiency |
| Page 6 - Result Analysis and Discussion |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |
Conclusion
With the Dark Power Pro 10 850W be quiet! released a true high-end product, featuring a costly AC filtering stage and the massive use of Nippon Chemi-Con capacitors. These are things which you would expect from the highest quality power supply unit and it is hard to find on other PC PSU, which are built according to similar standards. Furthermore, this is a very reliable PSU even if you plan it for a long term usage. As you could see from our review, we were quite impressed with be quiet!'s Dark Power Por 10 850W PSU and thus our conclusion is not far away from it. be quiet! certainly outdid itself with the Dark Power Pro 10 850W.
| Page 1 - Presentation |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Delivery / Specs |
| Page 4 - A Look Inside |
| Page 5 - Input/Output Power and Efficiency |
| Page 6 - Result Analysis and Discussion |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |
Author: JAVASCRIPT l.muehle@ocaholic.ch