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

Peter Donnell / 9 years ago

Final Thoughts

Pricing

OK, you folks knew this way coming, this may be a lower wattage design, but this is not a cheap power supply, that much is obvious from the testing pages. The saying “you get what you pay for” rings loud and clear here, you want one of the best PSUs on the market, you’ll need to dig a little deeper in your wallet and after what I’ve seen in our tests, I’m happy to say it’s worth every penny.

be quiet! DARK POWER PRO 11 550W £115 / €154 / $149
be quiet! DARK POWER PRO 11 650W £130 / €175 / $164
be quiet! DARK POWER PRO 11 750W £150 / €199 / $179

Conclusion

When I tested the 1200W unit of the Dark Power Pro series, I was very impressed and still regard it as one of the best high-end PSUs on the market, it even won our Extreme Performance Award! When I heard we were getting a low-wattage model, I can’t say I was overly excited, as lower wattage units are rarely regarded as “high-end” and often associated with budget models. Of course, that really wasn’t the case here and despite the lower power output, this is very much a high-end PSU with premium grade features, enthusiast levels of efficiency, power delivery and more.

The be quiet! name prides its self on being just that, quiet! The fan spins so quiet on this power supply that you’re never going to hear it; it’s comparable to passive cooled PSUs. You may not hear the PSU, but you can certainly see it, so it’s nice to see that be quiet! hasn’t skimped on the exterior design and you’ll be proud to show off its premium paint job and overall finish in your system. prettier cable braiding would also be nice, but I must admit, that’s hardly a deal breaker.

Power delivery was excellent and I was impressed most of all by the PFC and the voltage regulation, as this unit provided us with some of the tightest results we’ve ever seen, combined with excellent ripple suppression, high levels of efficiency, a virtually inaudible fan and more. Then we’ve got a bonus features such as the OCK for switching the rails from single to multiple modes as well the built-in fan headers, giving you a huge amount of flexibility on how you want to use it.

Pros

Modular cables
Extremely quiet fan
Amazing voltage regulation, PFC and ripple suppression
80 Plus Platinum efficiency
Capable of running 20%+ higher than rated
OCK
Built-in fan headers

Cons

Cable braiding

Neutral

“be quiet! have done it again, delivering the kind of performance we would normally see in enthusiast grade high-end units for those who don’t need super-high levels of wattage. If you want flawless performance, build quality and more, this is the unit to get!”