Noise and Ripple can easily be measured by an oscilloscope. These show how much voltage fluctuation there is on a particular rail. We tested the rail stability of the 3.3 volt, 5 volt and 12 volt rails using an identical time and millivolt scale for all graphs. millivolt ripple is measured by the peak to peak size of the voltage curve.
Sample Ripple Graph
The latest ATX 12 volt version 2.3 specifications state that ripple from peak to peak must be no higher than 50 millivolts for the 3.3 volt and 5 volt rails, while the 12 volt rail is allowed up to 120 millivolts peak to peak to stay within specifications. Millivolt figures are stated to the closest increment of 5 given their variability.
| Load (%) | 3.3V Ripple | 5V Ripple | 12V Ripple |
| 20 | 6.6 | 8.6 | 16.4 |
| 40 | 7.2 | 8.6 | 18.2 |
| 60 | 8.6 | 8.8 | 22 |
| 80 | 10.8 | 10.2 | 29.4 |
| 100 | 12.8 | 11.4 | 48.6 |
Keeping ripple down is something cheap power supplies suffer with because the components that prevent ripple are expensive. There are certainly no worries with Be Quiet!’s Straight Power 10 CM 800W PSU: it tames ripple on all rails with ease. Below you can see a visual representation of the ripple on this be quiet! unit. Only at 100% on the 12 volt rail was ripple a little under excellent, but 48mV is still very good.
3.3 volt @ 100%
5 volt @ 100%
12 volt @ 100%
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