About six years ago, I reviewed, tested and installed a be quiet! 550 watt power supply in my son’s gaming computer. It was a decent budget power supply and provided surprising efficiency of 50% at the time. In fact, the PSU is still in my son’s massively used and abused gaming PC and has yet to be the source of any issues. Recently, another box with assorted be quiet! products including the Dark Power Pro 10 650W arrived. It looks like the Germans are coming to North American market and they wanted us to look at one of their new 80Plus Gold efficient models known as the Dark Power Pro 10 650W power supply.
Features and Specifications
The Dark Power Pro 10 series feature 80Plus Gold efficiency. The heart of the unit has FSP Group fabrication written all over it. These guys have the expertise needed to make some impressive power supplies. The dark modular theme is used across them all. In terms of power efficiency, these are the ones you want powering your high end graphics cards and pro level computers. Here are some of the features the Pro 10 offers.
- Virtually silent operation – Achieved with a broad array of meticulous optimizations which includes a custom-designed 135mm SilentWings® fan.
- 135mm SilentWings Fan – Airflow-optimized fan blades, fluid dynamic bearing with copper core and high quality IC 1800RPM (max) motor controller for quiet operation – 12.9dB up to 50% load, 17.5dB at 100% load.
- 80PLUS Gold Certified – Up to 93% power conversion efficiency to do more work, waste less power and reduce power bills.
- 650 Watts continuous power – Provide deep power reserves and four independent +12V power rails.
- Full Bridge with synchronous rectifiers – Instead of using only two MOSFETs in the PWM stage, the unit uses four MOSFETs followed by LLC to smooth out alternating current for best possible efficiency.
- Modular cable management – Extra long modular cables simplify component installation, reduce annoying clutter, increasing airflow and improving case cooling potential.
- Overclocking key – Allows switching between independent quad +12V rail mode and high-performance single +12V rail operation to optimize current.
- High quality components – Meticulous German product conception, design and quality control: CapXon and all solid state capacitors, Panasonic main stage capacitors, noiseless PFC capacitor, Infineon PFC and LLC MOSFETs.
In terms of power support, the Dark Power Pro (DPP) offers new engineering power conversion technology as well as 300K hour component protection. Having looked inside, only good quality solid state and Japanese capacitors were used in assembly. Power plant wise, the diagram below explains the output, amperage, and noise levels to be expected, which we will try to validate in our testing.
Overall, this is the ideal amperage and power balance. The Dark Power Pro 10 series come with a 5 year warranty. Interestingly, Denmark and France consumers are offered Pick-up and return service in the first year, much like what NZXT has done with their “less than three” program introduced back at CES 2012.
Currently, the DPP 10 650W looks to be pricing in around $140-150 US/CA making it a bit more expensive than comparable PSUs available. But at the end of the day, we expect things engineered with “German Precision” but made in China, to be better than things that were not engineered with the same precision (but still made in China).
What’s In The Box?
The Dark Power Pro 10 650W is a modular power supply so it comes with all the cables that are modular, plus velcro cable ties that are both reusable and useful for things other than bundling up power supply cables if you still prefer to use zip ties. You of course get the manual and mounting screws. There’s also something called an “Overclock Key” which we’ll talk about in a bit. Everything seems to be organized very well in the packaging for easy use and assembly.
Dark Power Pro 10 650W At a Glance
The North American market should be very receptive of be quiet!’s design philosophy. The Dark Power Pro 10 (DPP) is a very “dark” yet interesting PSU in that it features a unique fan grill that covers the very quiet rated 135mm cooling fan. The fan is from their successful SilentWings series, which is also found as a regular case fan in their product line. It has a max 1800 rpm, needs 3.36 W, operates on 3.3 V to 13.8 V, moves 75.3 CFM (cubic feet of air a minute), and only generates about 18dB. Naturally, the fan specs increase as you go up in the line up.
Also, the front and back chassis edges are covered with matching molded black rubber intended to control, or eliminate any vibration during operation. We’ve seen PSU boots of sorts used before but these are not removable nor need any special maintenance. The chassis is smooth matte black which has en embedded brand badge plate on the side rather than just stickers.
Moving right along, let’s check out the some of the major features and start the torture testing!
Dark Power Pro 10 Ports and Cabling
The DPP 10 has unique modular cabling. They’re neatly broken down in to sections for easy connections. If the labeling doesn’t help, the shape of the cable connector makes it completely “noob” proof. Even the OCK (overclocking key) cable has a place which transforms the multiple 12V rails in to one single 12V rail. The switch should be operated only when the system is powered down of course.
All the PCIE cables use their own 12pin power connectors while all of the drive cables have a flat 5pin connector. Interestingly, the P4/P8 (8pin) cable actually has a 10pin modular cable for the PSU. The unfortunate thing about all these proprietary cables is that you can’t easily replace them with just any cables from other units in a pinch. Also, there are a few single MOLEX (4pin) cables and they aren’t daisy chained which essentially adds more unnecessary cost as you’ll need splitters.
Another unique feature is the addition of four small fan ports. You’ll find four 3-pin fan jumpers included in the cable bundle. These can come in handy if your particular custom PC needs additional fans or flexibility for powering them. While they cannot be manually controlled, they are automatically controlled by a sensor in the PSU that will only ramp up the speed if needed.
Test System Setup
Last time I tested a 650 Watt PSU, it took assembling an SLI and overclocked system to get there. It would be cool for appearances sake to use GTX 660 Ti SLI, but the cards use quite a bit less power than the GTX 560 Ti. Thus, it’s a bitter sweet return to my old test system.
- Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge @ 4.7GHz
- Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth Z77 (TUF Armor)
- Memory: Kingston HyperX 2800MHz 4GB Dual Channel
- Graphics: Dual MSI GTX 560 Ti TwinFrozrII
- Storage: Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD
- Storage 2: Dual Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB HDDs
- Power Supply: bequiet! Dark Power Pro 10 650 Watt (as tested)
- Software Monitoring: ASUS AI Suite II
As usual, idle and loaded system conditions were imposed while monitoring the DPP 10 650 voltage rails in both regular and OCK mode using an o-scope. Fan noise was recorded as best as possible from 2 feet away using an Extech sound meter. Let’s get to it.
bequiet! Dark Power Pro 10 650 Performance Results
People are going to use this power supply for gaming and for other builds that reach its maximum because it’s an 80Plus Gold certified power supply. First, I took at look at how the power supply deals with a typical power hungry gaming system pushing it to 85% load and then to max.
Voltages are well above spec here. And, during the repeated system use, voltages barely fluctuated at all if you call .006 a fluctuation. In fact, the ripple was in the area of 35mv at 85% load and 53mv at 100% load. While not shown, the +5V volt rail hit a low of 4.92 volts at full load. In terms of efficiency, the unit maintained an 88% efficiency right up to 100% holding true to the 80Plus Gold standard.
Is the Dark Power Pro 10 650 Noisy?
The PSU ran through the usual loaded levels to heat things up. I used the best sound meter in the lab to measure any noise from two feet. The noise was so low that the meter couldn’t detect fan noise even up close. We had a Puget Systems Serenity system in here before which was an amazing 11dB system and the PSU matched the recording. Under max and exceeded load, the fan was never offensive. The laser temp didn’t find anything over 54C on the inside.
Final Thoughts
The very attractive bequiet! Dark Power Pro 10 650W is a bitter sweet power supply. It’s more than efficient, offers strong performance, has an unoffensive 135mm cooling fan, provides more than its rated output, utilizes rubber ends to eliminate vibration, but can’t be purchased just yet. However, they’re preparing to send these units to the shelves later this Fall and I’m sure that many of you will be looking for them not only because of the performance aspects, but because the Germans did such a great job with the color scheme and design of their products.
The bitter part is that the Dark Power Pro 10 650W is estimated to hit the market at around $150 US MSRP. This places it at the top of the pricing scale in the 650 Watt segment. At this price range, it has to battle already establish manufacturers like Corsair, FSP, and Seasonic. Let’s not forget ANTEC as well since many of the be quiet! team were previously employed by them. But of course, the “German Engineering” card will be played, but when the product is made in China like all he others, one really has to wonder how strong this will resonate in a more price conscious North American market.
Taking pricing out the equation for a second, the Dark Power Pro 10 650w is perfectly targeted towards professionals and enthusiasts who expect serious performance and silence from a power supply. It really is a premium product that we have no trouble recommending. Our only hope is that we’ll see this premium product come to market at a more competitive price so that we can get a taste of the quality, and hopefully come back for more.
Pros
- 80Plus Gold efficiency
- Very good overall performance
- Unique user friendly cable ports
- Extra cables and Fan Connectors
- Built with quality components
Cons
- $150 MSRP on the high side
- Proprietary cables can’t easily be substituted
Overall Rating: 8.75 / 10.0
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