INTRODUCTION

   If you belong in the top 1% of gamers all over the world and are planning to upgrade to one of the latest AMD Radeon 6800/6900 XT or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080/3090 cards anytime soon then you should really invest a bit on an equally high-end power supply unit. Fortunately, this is something you're already well aware of so all that's really left is which model you should decide on getting. Well right now the market is not at its best and since power supply units go hand to hand with graphics cards this means two things, first that their prices have increased and second that there aren’t that many high-end ones available for purchase. Luckily this does not apply for newly released models (higher availability levels) and so since be quiet! just made their latest Dark Power 12 line available I’ll be testing the 1000W (1KW) variant.

   be quiet! is a premium brand of power supplies, PC cases and cooling solutions for desktop PCs. The products of be quiet! offer legendary quiet operation and first-class performance thanks the passion for quality and precision. Attention to detail is the key to perfection. Which is why our very own experts lead product conception, design and quality control from our headquarters in Germany. be quiet! sticks to its name: More than 15 years’ experience in the field of noise reduction and silence make be quiet! products probably the most silent ones on the market.

   The brand new Dark Power 12 line of power supply units is currently available in 750/850/1000W outputs all of which feature fully modular designs (future-proof since you can always change the cables if needed) and the 80 Plus Titanium certification (up to 95.9% electrical efficiency). The Dark Power 12 line is based on a state of the art DC-DC design/topology (active rectifier with full bridge LLC) which aside the impressive 95.9% efficiency also gives the unit a total of up to 8 PCIe connectors, 6 strong +12V rails (2x32A/2x40A) capable of delivering over 99% of the units total power output and a peak power output of no less than 1142W. Be quiet! has once again used an overclocking key which allows the end user to combine all four +12V rails into a single one with high power output (83A) making ideal for overclocked processors and/or graphics cards. Other features include strong minor rails with a total output of 146W, wire-free interior, sleeved cables, high-speed frameless 135mm Silent Wings fan and long-lasting Japanese capacitors certified for use up to 105 degrees Celsius. Of course, the new Dark Power 12 PSUs are Energy Star v7.0 compliant and are secured with a full array of electrical protections including over-current (OCP), over-voltage (OVP), under-voltage (UVP), short-circuit (SCP), over-temperature (OTP) and over-power (OPP). As always be quiet! offers a very generous 10-year limited manufacturer's warranty.