be quiet! Pure Power 9 700W Review
Category : PSUs
Published by Marc Büchel on 22.03.16
Be quiet!'s Pure Power 9 700W is a mid-range PSU offering 80Plus Silver certification and is produced by FSP(OEM). With a price of about US $100 you should not have to break a bank to afford it. Overall we're curious to find out what this unit can do.
Presentation
The be quiet! Pure Power 9 700W is packed in a rather simple box, which is pretty much what you get with most, if not all, PSUs in this price range. The outside shows all relevant specifications and features while on the inside there is the unit, packed in bubble-wrap.
The be quiet! Pure Power 9 700W comes bundled with the manual, standard power cord, a set of modular cables, and a couple of cable ties, allowing to keep things tidy in your case as well as four screws to secure it to the case.
The Pure Power 9 700W uses a black painted case with standard 150x160x86 dimensions and bottom mounted fan placed behind the grill. Since it is not a modular PSU, all cables come from a single point. The entire unit weighs 1.93kg. The fan behind the grill is silence-optimized 120mm be quiet! fan that features durable Rifle-Bearing-Technology and thermal control, offering best compromise between proper cooling and quiet performance.
| Page 1 - Presentation |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Delivery / Specs |
| Page 4 - A Look Inside |
| Page 5 - Input/Output Power and Efficiency |
| Page 6 - Result Analysis and Discussion |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |
Photo Gallery
| Page 1 - Presentation |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Delivery / Specs |
| Page 4 - A Look Inside |
| Page 5 - Input/Output Power and Efficiency |
| Page 6 - Result Analysis and Discussion |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |
Delivery and Specifications
The Pure Power 9 700W is a partiall modular power supply. The 24-pin as well as the 2x4-pin cable have been hard wired to the PSU. All the other cables can be connected if necesary.
Cables |
|
| Cable | Length |
| 1 x ATX 20+4 pin | 50 cm |
| 1 x EPS/ATX 12V (4+4) pin | 60 cm |
| 2x PCI-E 6+2 + 6+2 pin | 50, 50 cm |
| SATA + SATA + HDD + FDD | 50, 65, 80, 95 cm |
| SATA + HDD + HDD | 50, 65, 80 cm |
| SATA + SATA + SATA | 50, 65, 80 cm |
Connectivity is adequate for this particular PSU as it offers four PCI-Express 6+2-pin power connectors on two separate cables, six SATA and three Molex connectors, which is enough for most mid-range to higher end setups. The cables are 18 AWG. High-end PSUs usually use 16AWG or even better cables.
Specifications |
|||
| Voltage | Current | Power | |
| + 3.3 V | 25 A | 150 Watt | 700 Watt (Total) |
| + 5.0 V | 20 A | ||
| + 12 V1 | 36 A | 672 Watt | |
| + 12V2 | 30 A | ||
| - 12 V | 0.3 A | 3.6 Watt | |
| + 5 Vsb | 3.0 A | 15 Watt | |
Since this power supply is not based on a single +12V rail design it should be taken into an account that it actually provides 56Amps on both rails combined. The 12V1 rails is capable of providing 36Amps and the 12V2 pumps out up to 30Amps. Most PSU makers are currently going back to a single +12V rail design, but we are confident this one does well, unless you are pushing for extreme multi-GPU setups that require much higher-end PSUs.
The Pure Power 9 700W has been 80Plus Silver certified. This means, that the efficiency of this PSU should be above 85% at 20% load, above 88% at 50% load and above 85% at 100% load.
As you can see from the list below, the rest of the features include standard protections, standard dimensions and a 3-year warranty that is pretty much in line with most mid-range PSUs from various other manufacturers while high-end PSUs usually come with 5-year warranty.
- 80Plus Silver
- OVP, UVP, OCP, SCP, OPP, OTP
- Dimensions (W x H x D): 150 mm x 86 mm x 160 mm
- 120 millimeter fan
- Warranty: 3 Years
- Price: 100 EUR
| Page 1 - Presentation |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Delivery / Specs |
| Page 4 - A Look Inside |
| Page 5 - Input/Output Power and Efficiency |
| Page 6 - Result Analysis and Discussion |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |
A Look Inside
The be quiet Pure Power 9 is based on a FSP OEM design. A first hint for a solid power supply can be found when looking at the transient filtering stage. Here we find two Y caps and all cables have been nicely isolated.
On the primary side there is a rectifier and next to it FSP puts a PWM controller chip. Apart from that this platform is based on an active clamp SR design. The APFC Capacitor with 390uF at 420V and 85°C is from Teapo. The primary heatsink right behind it, takes care of removing the heat from a 17N80C3, a FQPF3N80C, a diode, a CET19M3Z as well as two 6R190E6. The PFC is being controlled by yet another chip. Looking for the bridge rectifier we find a GBU1506. All DC filtering capacitors are from Teapo. These aren't the most high-end caps available on the market, but they are in-line with the pricing of this unit.
The OCP, UVP, OVP is done by a WT7527.
| Page 1 - Presentation |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Delivery / Specs |
| Page 4 - A Look Inside |
| Page 5 - Input/Output Power and Efficiency |
| Page 6 - Result Analysis and Discussion |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |
Input/Output Power and Efficiency
| Page 1 - Presentation |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Delivery / Specs |
| Page 4 - A Look Inside |
| Page 5 - Input/Output Power and Efficiency |
| Page 6 - Result Analysis and Discussion |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |
Result Analysis and Discussion
Efficiency 115V |
|||
| Load | Pin(W) | Pout(W) | Efficiency |
| 20 % | 166.54 | 143.03 | 90.16 % |
| 50 % | 407.5 | 354.85 | 90.46 % |
| 100 % | 837.4 | 703.82 | 86.14 % |
The 80Plus Bronze certification requirements (85% - 88% - 85%) are surpassed especially at 20% load. This is the case with most of PSU's that you can buy today and it mainly originates from the reason of lower losses in the AC filtering stage and the PFC at 230V AC.
Output Stability |
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| Load | Rail | Loading(A) | Output(V) |
| 20 % | 5V | 2.72 | 5.07 |
| 3.3V | 3.42 | 3.29 | |
| 12V | 9.34 | 12.18 | |
| 50 % | 5V | 6.79 | 5.00 |
| 3.3V | 8.55 | 3.26 | |
| 12V | 23.4 | 12.05 | |
| 100 % | 5V | 13.56 | 5.02 |
| 3.3V | 17.00 | 3.25 | |
| 12V | 46.68 | 11.86 | |
The stability of the output voltages and the outcome of the crossload tests (results not shown here) are not perfect but still within the margin and the norms, so they are absolutely satisfactory (especially when you consider the Topology used in this PSU). Transient loads are a big issue for this topology. In modern PCs, transient load changes often occur. This can end in a output voltage that is not within the norm for a short moment. This again can end up in system instabilities.
| Noise | |
| Load | |
| 20 % | Silent |
| 50 % | Audible |
| 100 % | Audible |
Noise level results are decent and mostly attributed to be quiet!'s choice to use its own high-quality thermally controlled 120mm fan with rifle bearing.
| Noise/Ripple | |
| Voltage | Noise/Ripple Vpp |
| 5V | 0.022 |
| 12V | 0.021 |
| 3.3V | 0.020 |
| Page 1 - Presentation |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Delivery / Specs |
| Page 4 - A Look Inside |
| Page 5 - Input/Output Power and Efficiency |
| Page 6 - Result Analysis and Discussion |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |
Conclusion
With the Pure Power 9 700W be quiet! offers a decent PSU. The agressive price of 100 Euro makes it attractive for low-end and mid-rang gaming PC's. Another interesting application are home servers. However, we would recomend a PSU with higher efficiency for this purpose because of the noise, the heat, the higher electricity usage and the HDD connectors might be an issue. The fan can be considered as quite silent over a wide power range. When you give full load to the PSU the fan becomes quite audible.be quiet! has combined a nice and decent design with reasonable manufacturing quality. The parts, which are used to build this unit are quite good, if you keep the low price in mind. Because of the use of cheap Taiwanese Teapo capacitors we however do not recommend this device for applications which require high reliability or an extremely long lifespan.
The be quiet! Pure Power 9 700W receives 3.5 out of 5 stars.
| Page 1 - Presentation |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Delivery / Specs |
| Page 4 - A Look Inside |
| Page 5 - Input/Output Power and Efficiency |
| Page 6 - Result Analysis and Discussion |
| Page 7 - Conclusion |