be quiet! Pure Power 11 FM 850W Power Supply Review

How Much Does it Cost?

Available to purchase now, be quiet! has confirmed that the Pure Power 11 FM 850W power supply comes with an expected retail price of €124.90/$129.90/£109.99 (the Pure Power 11 FM 1000 W – €154.90/$159.90/£134.99). – So, in terms of price tags, this doesn’t really quite hit the supposed ‘entry-level’ remits that be quiet! is pushing with this product. I mean, it might be entry-level for them, but you can buy similarly specced power supplies for £20-£30 less. That being said though, will they come with this kind of build quality and a huge five-year warranty backed by one of the most reputable manufacturers around? We doubt it!

Performance

Despite effectively representing an entry-level solution (again, be quiet’s wording, not ours), in terms of performance, the Pure Power 11 FM did much better than many casual consumers might expect from within that remit. When you look at the exceptionally high-efficiency performance in our testing, combined with a whisper-quiet operation, it performed well beyond most of my expectations.

In fact, I can honestly say that within all of our testing, there was absolutely nothing to fault here. If anything, quite the opposite in that it performed significantly better than the features and specifications would suggest!

Practicality & Functionality

Coming as a fully-modular cable design, practicality already gets one big tick thanks to the owner’s ability to apply some solid levels of cable management. No, the cables aren’t the nicest thing to work with. And yes, some users with less than friendly cases may have to make some compromises due to their less than generous length. With its sleek practical design and basic, but offering nothing displeasing, aesthetics, however, the Pure Power 11 FM seems to tick all of the right boxes for users looking for a no-nonsense power supply solution to help assist their PC building requirements.

Should I Buy One?

Throughout this review, I constantly had to keep reminding myself that the Pure Power 11 FM is primarily marketed as an entry-level power supply solution. This remit made me keep putting my opinions and potential criticisms in check as I too often these days associate be quiet! with more with top-spec/premium-level products. They do, of course, release a lot of high-end products, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do great entry-level solutions too! And, in that regard, the Pure Power 11 FM is definitely one of them!

If be quiet! calls this an entry-level power supply solution though, then they clearly have significantly higher standards than me because for how well this performed in our testing, and with its many practical features, I’d be entirely willing, at an absolute minimum, to call this an excellent upper mid-tier product. – The only real downside is that as a supposed entry-level product, this is probably a bit too expensive for its own good. And particularly so given the highly competitive market this is vying in. – It’s a great power supply for sure, but cheap, it is not!

Overall though, the be quiet! Pure Power 11 FM is perhaps best described as a somewhat contradictory product. It is a budget premium power supply option (weird, right?). And from our perspective, one that offers a hell of a lot more performance than you might expect under those usual remits!