INTRODUCTION

   Even though owners of the latest Radeon RX 7900 XT/XTX cards were faced with a nice surprise when they found out that they didn't have to swap their old power supply units for new ATX 3.0 & PCIe 5.0 one this will not be the case when the new Ryzen CPUs come out. The same of course applies for Intel's upcoming 14th generation CPUs and even though consumers will not be "forced" to pair these with new power supplies there will certainly be some benefits for those who will. AMD may also incorporate the new +12VHPWR standard with their upcoming Radeon RX 8xxx series of graphics cards (NVIDIA most certainly will just like with their GeForce RTX 4080/4090 cards) so in the near future the reasons for owning an ATX 3.0 & PCIe 5.0 power supply unit will keep piling up. In early June three of the latest ATX 3.0 & PCIe 5.0 power supply units arrived in the lab and the Pure Power 12 M 1200W by be quiet! was among them.

   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.

   In January this year be quiet! updated their Pure Power 12 M line of power supply units with full support for the ATX 3.0 & PCIe 5.0 standards. Back then however only the 550/650/750/850/1000W variants made their debut (1000W review here) with the 1200W one scheduled to be released at a later date. Well, the Pure Power 12 M 1200W was actually released roughly a month ago alongside the Dark Power Pro 13 line and just like its lower output brother it too is a fully modular, 80 PLUS Gold certified model (up to 93.7% electrical efficiency). It also sports a single +12VHPWR 600W power cable, two strong +12V rails (55A/50A) capable of delivering 100% of the units’ total power output (1200W), peak power output of no less than 1338W (although once again according to ATX 3.0 specs peak should now be up to 2.4KW for 100ms – can’t try it however), 4 PCIe 6+2 connectors and LLC topology. Needless to say, the Pure Power 12 M 1200W is covered by a 10-year limited warranty and is fully secured by an array of electrical protections including over-current (OCP), over-voltage (OVP), under-voltage (UVP), short-circuit (SCP), over-temperature (OTP), over-power (OPP) and Surge & Inrush (SIP).

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

Typically, at the front of the black box we find a large product picture, the company logo and the power output.

The electrical table is printed at the rear of the box alongside several certifications.

As with the 1KW model the 1.2KW variant is placed inside a bubble wrap and under a piece of cardboard.

Along with the Pure Power 12 M 1200W unit, its modular cables and power cord inside the box you'll also find 5 cable ties, 5 mounting screws and the user manual.

THE PURE POWER 12 M 1200W EXTERIOR

Once again be quiet! has used sleeved motherboard power cables all else are low profile (slim) ones.

The Pure Power 12 M 1200W is your average sized ATX factor PSU that measures 160mm in length, 150mm in width and 86mm in height.

To keep interior components cool be quiet! has used an 120mm intake fan placed under a nice looking grille.

On the left side of the housing, we find the company logo whereas on the right we find a sticker with the electrical table on it.

At the front of the Pure Power 12 M 1200W we find 10 modular ports which are both different in size and tagged.

Moving at the rear we find the power port and the on/off power switch.

THE PURE POWER 12 M 1200W INTERIOR

Once again be quiet! has used the 120mm BQ QF2-12025-HS fan, this time however spinning at 2700RPM.

Due to extreme workload I again forgot to check the OEM number of this unit but based on the layout once again I probably have to point to HEC as the OEM for this unit (as with previous reviews I will double check and correct this if I’m wrong).

Both primary capacitors are manufactured by the Taiwanese ELITE (Chinsan Electronic) and are certified for use up to 105 degrees Celsius.

Secondary capacitors are manufactured by the Taiwanese Teapo Electronic (Jamicon Teapo) and are also certified for use up to 105 degrees Celsius.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

     Using a dedicated measurement instrument such as a Chroma or a SunMoon to test power supply units is without doubt the most ideal and accurate way (not to mention the fastest) to do that currently. However, it's certainly not the only way there is and so pretty much anyone can test a power supply unit just by using a test rig. Certainly, limitations do apply and so you can't really push a 1000W power supply to its limits if your system only uses 500W at peak loads and that's why over the years we saved certain hardware components for the purpose of building a dedicated PSU test rig. True it may not be as accurate as the above mentioned solutions but it comes really close and is in fact much closer to real world usage. So as always, we ran several games with maximum graphic options enabled at a resolution of 2560x1600 in order to stress every hardware component and increase the overall power demands of the system. The Passmark BurnIn Test was also used to overstress the components in an effort to provide the most accurate results possible. As a final test we also used the latest OCCT 4.4 software and its dedicated PSU testing suite since it can really bring a power supply to its knees after inside a few minutes.

   Rail stability was checked/measured with the CPUID Hardware monitor and a Metex multimeter which also recorded the system load in idle and in load. As always try to remember that the power consumption numbers listed in the graph are the highest (Peak) ones recorded during the entire duration of the tests and not the average ones. Noise levels coming from the fan were recorded using the high precision HD600 ExTech Sound dBA Meter from the rear of the unit and at a range of no more than 5-10cm. Readings under load are recorded the exact moment we manually switch the fans of all graphics cards from full speed to almost zero, that way the fan of the power supply does not have enough time to slow its RPM and so by doing this we get very accurate noise level readings. Needless to say, in order to get 100% accurate readings, you need to have a noise isolated room for that exact purpose, something which is quite impossible unless you are working inside a real lab (some people use very small noise insulated boxes but due to their size both heat and noise exceed normal levels and so the results can't really be considered to be 100% accurate, nor realistic for that matter). Also do take into account that since all noise measurements take place from just 5-10cm away the final noise levels to reach your ears will be considerably less.

* After well over 10 years of testing PSUs the Intel Core i7-920 CPU of this rig failed and so we replaced it with a Xeon X5660 (we also swapped the GA-X58A-UD7 for the G1. Assassin).

TEST RESULTS

CONCLUSION

   When the ATX 3.0 & PCIe 5.0 Pure Power 12 M models came out in late January the 1000W variant seemed to be more than enough for even the most demanding consumers. Still our friends over at be quiet! obviously didn’t agree and so fast forward 5 months later and the 1200W variant is finally here. Honestly just like with any other PSU line these two variants are really not that different. Rail stability is solid with both models (slightly better with the 1200W variant), build quality is pretty much identical and as for noise levels well the 1200W does get a bit louder (just don’t forget that your CPU/GPU coolers should be even louder at load). As for the 10-year limited warranty well it’s as always very welcome as are the numerous electrical protections.

   Currently retailing for 203Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) the Pure Power 12 M 1200W ATX 3.0 & PCIe 5.0 power supply unit by be quiet! is priced well (unfortunately it seems that there’s no availability on the other side of the Atlantic). Overall, the Pure Power 12 M 1200W is a good example of how a PSU can be both very good at what it does without asking for a lot in return. Yes, things like relatively high noise (at 1KW+ load) and Taiwanese capacitors may deter some consumers but at least for the latter i do think that the 10-year limited warranty is more than enough to make up for that and since the Pure Power 12 M 1200W truly delivers it deserves the Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Solid Rail Stability
- ATX 3.0 & PCIe 5.0
- 80 PLUS Gold Certified
- 1200W Output (+12VHPWR 600W Connector)
- Electrical Protections (OCP/OVP/SSP/OPP/UVP/OTP/SIP)
- 10 Year Limited Warranty

CONS

- Current USA Availability
- Noise Levels (For Some)