INTRODUCTION

   Alien Isolation was just released for PC and already many of you have asked us about which graphics card and power supply combo to choose so you can have the maximum gaming experience possible. Naturally since the new GeForce series was just released by NVIDIA our primary choice is the excellent GTX 970 model since it offers a much better price/performance ratio compared to its slightly faster and quite more expensive brother the GTX 980. As for which power supply to use well the GTX 970 is a very good graphics card across the board so although it surpasses almost every single GPU model in the market (aside the GTX 980) it hardly ever gets over 200W while gaming, still we do recommend getting at least an 650W model just to be on the safe side. Because of this today we will be focusing our efforts in testing one of the latest PSU models to hit the market the Pure Power L8 730W (L8-CM-730W) by be quiet!

   be quiet! is a premium brand manufacturer of power supplies and cooling solutions for your desktop PC. be quiet! products are convincing which is proved by reaching and defending the market leadership in PSU business in Germany for five consecutive years *. This is validated and accompanied by numerous awards for both power supplies and cooling solutions. be quiet! is awarded for five times in a row as manufacturer of the year in the power supply category by the readers of the well-known German hardware magazine PC Games Hardware. Another first and second rank in the categories “fans” and “cooler” underline the high acceptance of our products. be quiet! sticks to its name: Ten years’ experience in the field of noise reduction and silence make be quiet! products probably the most silent one on the market. Undoubted fans have a large impact of the noise levels of be quiet! products. Due we are using our specially developed Silent Wings fans in nearly all of our range. They are equipped with various noise reducing features. Thanks to these we ensure a really silent operation - our products reach the best balance between cooling performance and a virtually inaudible operation. If you choose be quiet! you can be sure to get premium quality and second to none silent operation from the quietness experts.

   There are actually two sub-lines in the Pure Power line of PSUs by be quiet! the "regular" one the 700W variant of which we had the chance to test a while back and the modular one which we have here with us today. However since this line is not the high end one by be quiet! but rather the "essential" one (as stated on the box) we don't see a fully modular design so the mainboard 24pin cable is hardwired in the chassis. That being said the Pure Power L8 730W features an 80 Plus Bronze efficiency certification (up to 88% power conversion efficiency), 120mm Rifle-Bearing-Technology SilentWings L8 fan, two independent +12V rails for optimal power stability (both deliver up to 87% of the units total power output), 4 PCI-E power connectors, industrial protections (OCP/OVP/UVP/SCP/OTP/OPP) and support for Energy Star 5.2, ErP 2014, Intel Haswell platform and Intel’s Deep Power Down C6/C7 mode. So basically compared to the 700W variant of the regular line you are getting 30W more and modular cables with the 730W variant of the modular line. The question however is how well it performs especially since modular units are known to be slightly worse in terms of rail stability compared to their wired brothers.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

A product picture is placed at the front along with the main product features and the company logo.

Some words about the features of the product in 4 different languages are placed on the two sides of the box.

The available connectors are listed at the rear right next to the electrical table, two pictures showcasing its size and several certification logos.

Be quiet! used both a bubble bag and cardboard to secure the L8-700W inside the box.

Inside the box you will find the Pure Power L8 730W PSU, modular cables, AC power cable, 5 wire straps, 5 mounting screws and the user’s manual.

THE PURE POWER L8 730W EXTERIOR

The unit features a nice black matte paint and as you can see just has the mainboard power connectors hardwired.

A 120mm 7 blade fan is used to keep the interior temperatures in check.

On one side of the PSU we see the company logo while on the other there's a sticker with the electrical table.

There are just 5 modular connectors in all on the chassis both tagged and color coded.

Cable sleeving is very good not only because it extends to the interior but also because be quiet! has placed a piece of rubber for extra protection.

Once again at the rear we find the usual honeycomb perforation, the on/off power switch and the power plug.

THE PURE POWER L8 730W INTERIOR

The same 120mm SilentWings rifle-bearing fan used in the 700W variant is also present here and so it can reach speeds up to 2000RPM to produce up to 58CFM of airflow with 30.8dBA of noise.

I was slightly surprised to see that the interior layout is almost identical to that of the 700W model minus the modular connectors of course.

Both for primary and secondary capacitors be quiet! has chosen ones by Teapo certified for use up to 85 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 computer. Certainly limitations do apply and so you can't really test a 1000W power supply if your system only uses 500W at peak loads and that's why during the past 5 years i have 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 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). 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.

TEST RESULTS

RAIL STABILITY

Another surprising thing with the 730W modular variant was that its rail results were tighter compared to those of the 700W wired variant.

POWER CONSUMPTION

We managed to hit up to 764W instantly with our test bed but as you can see that didn’t affect rail stability.

NOISE LEVELS (SPL)

44.9dBA at 34W over the rated power output of the unit is actually better than we had hoped and so under normal use the fan shouldn’t go over 42dBA.

CONCLUSION

   When we requested from be quiet! to send the 730W modular variant we did expect it to perform on par or slightly worse compared to the 700W wired variant so when it actually performed slightly better that was a surprise we all welcomed. Aside the performance part however the Pure Power L8 730W also looks a lot better compared to the Pure Power L8 700W not only because of the modular feature but also because of the many colors be quiet! has used. True this doesn't change anything but i know many people who want even their power supplies to look nice and with quite a few manufacturers focusing on that i think it might be quite important to some people. Honestly i don't have anything bad to say about the Pure Power L8 730W since it delivers exactly what be quiet! advertises and that's what matters so if the price is right then they have a winner in their hands.

   After spending quite a bit of time online searching for the Pure Power L8 730W we were unable to find it inside the USA but it is available in the EU for a price tag of 100Euros (Amazon.co.uk) which is actually very good since for around 10Euros more compared to the price of the 700W variant you are getting higher output and modular cabling. Having used and tested several PSUs by be quiet! this didn't come as a surprise so i hope they can make it available in the USA soon since i think it's a better choice overall compared to its regular brother (not by much but it is). Overall we all agree that the Pure Power L8 730W may not be perfect but it combines very good performance with good features at a good price and that's why it gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Very Good Performance Levels
- 80 Plus Bronze Certified
- Haswell Ready
- Electrical Protections (OCP/OVP/UVP/SCP/OTP/OPP)
- 3 Years Warranty

CONS

- Noise Levels (For Some)
- USA Availability (Current)