be quiet! PowerZone 650W PSU Review

1. Introduction2. bequiet! PowerZone 650W (Bundle & Cables)3. bequiet! PowerZone 650W (External)4. bequiet! PowerZone 650W (Internal)5. bequiet! PowerZone 650W (Super High Res Gallery)6. Testing Methodology & Results7. Closing Thoughts8. View All Pages

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.

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