be quiet! Straightpower 450W & 600W

I’d like to thank Listan for making this review possible.

The company behind be quiet! products is Listan (Revoltec is also their brand). They are a leading hardware distributer in Europe with massive amount of resellers all over the world. So what about be quiet! ? It’s a recognizable brand to a wide crowd, especially system integrators and enthusiasts looking for grade A power supplies. Today I’ll be showing off two different power supplies though from the same line of products: Straightpower series. What exactly do we have in our lab for you? 450 Watt (BQT E5-450W) and 600 Watt (BQT E5-600W) models.

Most of you are probably aware of the fact that stable rails and low tolerance lead to better system stability. With quad core CPUs around the corner, it’s crucial to feed such devices with power they need. Power (in watts) alone of course won’t cut it. The rest of the story is current which is expressed in amps. General rule of thumb is the more the better. Hardware vendors, especially guys that make CPUs and motherboards will require you to have a power supply with “xx” number of amps for stable operation. By the way, the number increases every now and then as more hungry devices see the day light.

Main features are common across the whole line of be quiet! Straightpower power supplies. They include Active PFC where voltage is switched automatically depending on what you have in your wall socket, either 115 or 230V — no need for additional switches. Both PSUs are cooled with 120 mm fans with regulated speed. Honeycomb design is a common solution used by most manufactures now, additionally Listan gives you 3 year warranty.

Design-wise, Listan makes very nice PSUs. Enclosures have a very clean look and slick line. The Straightpower series will look fine in every PC case, especially the ones with side panel windows.

As you can see Straight Power PSUs are inserted into black cartons with cut out piece in the middle to show off its huge fans. Notice handles on the top of the boxes. When you take out the PSU you get blinded by perfect mirror finish look. You can see it in action on the last image. Both Straight Power 450W & 600W units sport 120 mm silent fan with regulated rotation speed. The back features honeycomb design for better heat dissipation. Once again, check out this mirror finish!

Now that we have taken care of the outside, let’s look at the interior parts. Listan and their be quiet! power supplies have been known for good quality components.

First glimpse reveals no differences between 450W and 600W units. However there have to be discrepancies. The 450W model sports two 12v rails while 600W unit four of those. It may not be noticeable, but wire coils are thicker and there is just more wire rolled on. Obviously you will find larger electrolytic capacitors, transformers or resistors. The included silent fan is made by Protechnic, an electric company. The other differences are weight for example. The 600W model weighs a little more than its brother, but the difference is really marginal. Both units are quite heavy which suggests high quality components used.

Be quiet! Straightpower power supplies come in very nice boxes with handles. They are well designed with useful information and no wasted space. As for accessories you get a few screws, four thumb screws, velcro straps, zip ties and power cable.

Although Straightpower units use non modular system, they can be easily organized with the included straps and ties. It can get messy, but it’s manageable if you can use most of those cables. An interesting addition to standard cabling are fan wires where you can connect 6 fans that can be controlled by the PSU.

Let’s check the cabling system along with main power connectors. First image shows 20+4 pin power connector (the 4-pin is detachable for those with older 20-pin motherboard sockets). Next up we have CPU power connector which can be split into 2 x 4-pin (or 8-pin). PCI-Express cables are also present and there are 2 of those. This set of wires is available for both BQT E5-450W and BQT E5-600W units. Let’s move down a little and see what else we have.

BQT E5-450W: for this model there are total of six 4-pin connectors, four SATA connectors and one 3-pin FDD connector.
BQT E5-600W: with this power house it’s similar though it’s got eight SATA plugs. The rest stays the same.

While I switch power supplies pretty often, I’ve never had any major problem while installing it. Same applies here. As long as it’s ATX compatible it fits and doesn’t blow up then it technically works (until I take it for a load test). The only thing that bothers me is the mirror finish on those units. It’s not scratch proof so if your hands are shaky you might accidentally tarnish it while fitting it inside your case.

This is likely the most interesting part of any review — testing under different kinds of working environments. The tolarance level for most PSUs nowadays is +/- 5% from the nominal voltage. With that in mind, I recorded minimum, maximum and average rail values (both idle, loaded and overclocked states). Let’s see if those two PSUs stand a chance in real world torture testing.

 

Be quiet! power supplies have been known for quality built and overall good performance. Personally I’ve had great time testing both Straightpower 450W and 600W power houses. I loaded as much as I could on both PSUs. The good thing was that none gave me any issues. Even the 450W model performed surprisingly well under above conditions. I wish I could throw more at them although that’s about to end with my new über leet PSU tester. That device will draw everything out of a PSU.

Back to Straightpower 450W and 600W. You’ll be happy with either of them, just think of what you’ll run. For Crossfire / SLI however I’d rather recommend the 600W model as it’s a more future proof investment. The 450W version supports dual graphics, but it might “squeak” if you throw a whole lot more at it. Straightpower PSUs are efficient and quiet, but with drawbacks; both produce high voltages for 12v rails. That concerns me as they almost reach the 5% tolerance level. Of course it would be nice to see modular cable system, but it’s hard to get everything in one package nowadays. As for price, those two don’t come with low price tags. If €80 for 450W model doesn’t scare you away go right ahead and order one. The higher-end model costs €20 more (€100) so if you think you might need that extra 150 Watts get that one instead. Neither PSU is available in the United States.