be quiet! PowerZone 650W PSU Review

Today we are looking at the new be quiet! PowerZone 650W power supply. These new units are set to target 'discerning gamers and PC enthusiasts' and incorporate a fully modular design, low noise fans and 80 Plus Bronze certification. Is the PowerZone 650W worth shortlisting? be quiet! have earned a good reputation in the power supply sector, partnering up with a handful of OEM partners to create their designs. This 650W unit is based around an FSP design, receiving some tweaks and enhancements from bequiet!, including the adoption of an ultra high grade 135mm SilentWings fan. Highlights: Massive 12V rail design is ideal for overclocking Full cable management supports maximum build flexibility COOL*OFF feature run fans for three minutes after system shutdown Connect up to three case fans for optimized system cooling Designed for powerful operation even at 50° C 135mm SilentWings® fan with innovative 6-pole motor enables quiet operation 80PLUS Bronze efficiency (up to 90%) Up to six PCI express connectors (NVIDIA SLI, AMD CrossFireX) Compatible with Intel C6/C7 Five-year warranty German product conception, design and quality control The new PowerZone units ship in a dark, steam punk style box featuring the company and product name alongside the power output. The modular cables are shipped inside two cardboard boxes offset at each end of the power supply unit itself. There are also cable ties, mounting screws, a regional specific power cable and a user manual. be quiet! ship the power supply fully enclosed in a lovely little felt bag, this will offer additional protection during shipping. be quiet! are using high grade 18AWG sleeved cables for this unit, not the newer flat 'ribbon' style cables which are easier to route. There are four PCI E cables which is ideal for a dual Crossfire or SLI configuration. These are 600mm long, as is the main 24 pin motherboard connector. There are eight SATA connectors and three Molex connectors, alongside an FDD connector. We really do love the appearance of this power supply. bequiet! have attached various well made plastic panels to the sides of the main chassis - all to improve the appearance. This material is extremely resistant to both fingerprints and general scratches. The unit passed our ‘screwdriver’ stress test, which involves running a Philip’s head driver down the side of the chassis with weak to modest pressure. How often have you accidentally hit a power supply with some tools during a system build phase? The power supply measures 86 x 150 x 175 mm (LxWxH). It is ErP 2013 ready. Even the be quiet! logo is engraved right into the material, a lovely touch. One side of the power supply is vented to help improve airflow, alongside the traditional power switch and cable connector. We like how the company have covered this edge with strips of material to further enhance the appearance. The modular panel takes up the full width of the power supply. Each of the rows is clearly labelled to make the system installation phase straightforward. All of the cable connector sizes are different anyway so it would be impossible to accidentally plug into the wrong socket. be quiet! PowerZone 650W PSU DC Output +3.3V +5V +12V -12V +5Vsb Max Output 25A 25A 54A 0.3A 3A Total Power 140W 648W 3.6W 15W 650W The single 12V rail can deliver 54A, or 648W of the total power. Both +3.3V and +5V output can deliver 25A. be quiet! are using a 135mm SilentWings fan in this supply - model number BQ SIW3-13522-HF-26. This is the same fan featured in the 750W model of the supply although bequiet! say that each model in the range uses a different fan profile. It is rated to a maximum rotational speed of 2,600rpm which produces 107.55cfm. It demands 4.32W of power and 0.36A current. These fans use a proprietary surface texture to reduce air turbulences. The company claim that every single fan they sell is tested and tared out individually. They spin the fan blade at very high speeds and then adjust the weight of the fan in areas to compensate for any imperfections. This is a similar principle when you get a new tyre fitted to a car or motorbike wheel. be quiet! also have a system in place which spins the fan for three minutes after the system is shut down to help remove any excess warm air inside the chassis. Stripping down this power supply takes a little extra work as the custom moulded plastic panels need to be removed first. Not a complaint, as taking the power supply apart will void your warranty anyway so don't do it. That is why we are here. Soldering quality throughout seems reasonably good on the main PCB. The PowerZone offers OCP, OPP, OVP, UVP, SCP and OTP protection. The design uses aluminum, not electrolyte capacitors on the modular cable backplate. Aluminum capacitors offer lower equivalent series resistance. The PowerZone power supply uses a DC/DC design to maintain tight voltage regulation. The 3.3 V and 5V voltages are generated from the 12V rail, after the main transformer. The supply uses predominately TEAPO capacitors throughout, all rated at 105c. The primary stage capacitor is a 105c TEAPO model, rated 420V 330uF. There are different views on the quality of TEAPO capacitors, I have seen a few fail over the years, but they are normally fine in well ventilated power supplies and there is no doubt that these will be better than cheaper 85c rated caps from the same company. That said, they certainly don't rate well when compared against the best on the market from companies such as Rubycon, Panasonic or Nippon Chemi Con. On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. Additional technical assistance: Peter McFarland and Jeremy Price. Correctly testing power supplies is a complex procedure and KitGuru have configured a test bench which can deliver up to a 2,000 watt DC load. Due to public requests we have changed our temperature settings recently – previously we rated with ambient temperatures at 25C, we have increased ambient temperatures by 10c (to 35c) in our environment to greater reflect warmer internal chassis conditions. We use combinations of the following hardware: • SunMoon SM-268 • CSI3710A Programmable DC load (+3.3V and +5V outputs) • CSI3711A Programmable DC load (+12V1, +12V2, +12V3, and +12V4) • Extech Power Analyzer • Extech MultiMaster MM570 digital multimeter • SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter (6-130dBa) • Digital oscilloscope (20M S/s with 12 Bit ADC) • Variable Autotransformer, 1.4 KVA DC Output Load Regulation Combined DC Load +3.3V +5V +12V +5VSB -12V A V A V A V A V A V 152W 2.03 3.35 2.04 5.07 10.12 12.15 0.50 5.02 0.20 -12.04 270W 3.02 3.35 3.05 5.07 19.14 12.12 0.50 5.02 0.30 -12.03 400W 4.05 3.34 5.00 5.03 29.17 12.09 1.00 5.01 0.30 -12.05 523W 6.08 3.34 7.04 5.02 38.19 12.07 1.50 5.01 0.30 -12.03 650W 8.00 3.33 9.00 4.99 48.00 12.02 2.50 5.00 0.30 -12.03 Voltage regulation is very good, and all output hold within an acceptable range. be quiet! PowerZone 650W PSU Maximum Load 701W The power supply would shut down at 701W, gracefully. The protection circuitry worked well. Next we want to try Cross Loading. This basically means loads which are not balanced. If a PC for instance needs 500W on the +12V outputs but something like 30W via the combined 3.3V and +5V outputs then the voltage regulation can fluctuate badly. Cross Load Testing +3.3V +5V +12V -12V +5VSB A V A V A V A V A V 590W 1.0 3.35 1.0 5.06 48.0 12.01 0.2 -12.03 0.50 5.02 145W 12.0 3.31 15.0 4.92 2.0 12.13 0.2 -12.04 0.50 5.01 Cross load results are quite good. There is some fluctuation, but the results all hold well within what we would consider to be safe parameters. We then used an oscilloscope to measure AC ripple and noise present on the DC outputs. We set the oscilloscope time base to check for AC ripple at both high and low ends of the spectrum. ATX12V V2.2 specification for DC output ripple and noise is defined in the ATX 12V power supply design guide. ATX12V Ver 2.2 Noise/Ripple Tolerance Output Ripple (mV p-p) +3.3V 50 +5V 50 +12V1 120 +12V2 120 -12V 120 +5VSB 50 Obviously when measuring AC noise and ripple on the DC outputs the cleaner (less recorded) means we have a better end result. We measured this AC signal amplitude to see how closely the unit complied with the ATX standard. AC Ripple (mV p-p) DC Load +3.3V +5V +12V 5VSB 152W 5 10 15 10 270W 10 10 20 10 400W 10 10 30 10 523W 10 15 35 15 650W 15 20 45 15 Ripple suppression is very impressive. Both +3.3V and +5V output hold within 15mV and 20mV at full load. The +12V output peaks between 40mV and 50mV which is well within safe industry rated tolerance levels. Efficiency (%) 152W 81.78 270W 88.75 400W 88.12 523W 87.23 650W 84.51 Efficiency is very impressive for a 80 Plus Bronze certified unit, peaking at 88.8% efficiency at around 50% load. At full load this drops to around 84.5 percent efficiency. We take the issue of noise very seriously at KitGuru and this is why we have built a special home brew system as a reference point when we test noise levels of various components. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on components we are testing. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635. Today to test the Power Supply we have taken it into our acoustics room environment and have set our SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter (6-130dBa) one meter away from the unit. We have no other fans running so we can effectively measure just the noise from the unit itself. As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels. KitGuru noise guide 10dBA - Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves 20-25dBA – Whisper 30dBA - High Quality Computer fan 40dBA - A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator 50dBA - Normal Conversation 60dBA - Laughter 70dBA - Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer 80dBA - City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal 90dBA - Motorcycle or Lawnmower 100dBA - MP3 Player at maximum output 110dBA - Orchestra 120dBA - Front row rock concert/Jet Engine 130dBA - Threshold of Pain 140dBA - Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range) 160dBA - Instant Perforation of eardrum Noise (dBA) 152W <28.0 270W <28.0 400W 29.1 523W 31.6 650W 33.8 The SilentWings fans are class leading. This power supply is silent until around 500W of power demand when it spins up a little to compensate. Even at a full 650W demand the unit is quiet. The fan speed rotates between 600 rpm and 1,900 rpm. Temperature (c) Intake Exhaust 152W 36 40 270W 39 43 400W 42 47 523W 43 55 650W 45 59 The large fan spins slowly through the load range, spinning up between 500 watts and 650 watts. Maximum load Efficiency 701W 84.1 Pushing the PSU above its rated limits generates an ultimate efficiency level of around 84.1%. This is not a viable ‘real world’ situation, but its interesting nonetheless. The be quiet! PowerZone 650W immediately grabs attention thanks to the eye catching design of the custom panels which are attached to the main metal chassis. These panels not only look great, but they are very resilient to finger prints and scratches. The plain black finish will look great in any system and the light catches the ridges on the various surfaces well. Technically, the unit performs well and while there is some fluctuation in our intensive cross loading test, there are no discernible issues to cause concern. Load regulation is quite good and the power supply can deliver 50 watts more than its rating (701 watts) before it shuts down, safely. Ripple suppression is very impressive, with both +3.3V and +5v peaking at 15mV and 20mV respectively. The +12V output peaked at 45mV at full load, which is well within industry rated tolerance guidelines. For an 80 Plus Bronze certified unit the PowerZone scores extremely well in regards to efficiency, getting quite close to 80 Plus Silver in our tests. One of the strongest selling points for the PowerZone are the low noise levels. The Silent Wings fans are market leading designs and even when the power supply is at full load, the noise levels are very low. The fan normally spins between 600 rpm and 1,100 rpm, rising to a maximum of 1,900 rpm at full load. When this is combined with the pure modular cable design, this makes it an ideal choice for a media center, or for building a system into a smaller chassis, such as the BitFenix Prodigy. On the other hand be quiet! do ensure the cables are long enough to accommodate a system build inside a full tower case. The be quiet! PowerZone 650W power supply is available on pre-order from Scan for around the £88 inc vat mark. be quiet! products are normally quite expensive, but the PowerZone is a quality design and certainly worth buying. Pros: It looks great. long cables. full modular design. extremely quiet, even under heavy load. delivered over 700 watts before shutting down. noise suppression is excellent. efficiency is good. Cons: faces stiff competition from Seasonic and Corsair. not the flat ribbon style cables. Kitguru says: A quality power supply which delivers solid all round results.