be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 550W Power Supply Review

A Closer Look – Interior

The interior of the PSU looks quite busy, there’s certainly more hardware in here than I was expecting for a lower wattage unit, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There are quite a few cables passing through the unit, but they’re kept to the side so not to interfere with airflow around the main power delivery components, which obviously want to be kept as cool as possible. Aside from the main PCB, you’ll also find six smaller daughter boards, which helps keep a lot of the layout clear, increases airflow and will also help with heat dissipation.

There’s not one, but two! main bulk capacitors in this PSU, which is something I’ve never seen in a lower wattage unit. This capacitor is rated for 450v, 220uf @ 105c.

As I said before, there are a few cables causing a little clutter inside this unit and to prevent shorting connectors, or cable from becoming detached, they’ve been firmly glued into their headers and a few cable ties have been applied, so there’s certainly signs of a little extra thought going into the build process. At the back, you can see the protection board, which will help with voltage control and fan regulation. In front of that, you can see the smaller DC/DC board for 3.3 and 5V delivery.

All of the caps used here are high-quality, and that will play no small part in delivering this units promised 80 Plus Platinum efficiency rating; these are backed up by secondary 28 aluminium solid output capacitors on the output PCB, which will allow better management of any spikes from your hardware, such as the GPU.

The EMC/EMI filter, the first step in delivering clean power to the PSU and your system.

We’ve already seen the best hardware used in the main PSU, which should virtually eliminate any coil whine and other issues, but this is also backed up by a very high-quality Silent Wings 3 135mm fan.