The Be Quiet! Straight Power 11 750W PSU Review: Excellent Quality, But Not Quiet
by E. Fylladitakis on November 7, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- PSUs
- 80Plus Gold
- 750W
- be quiet!
Be Quiet! is a German manufacturer that mainly produces PC cases, power supply units (PSUs), and cooling-related products. As the company's name suggests, their products are designed with quiet operation primarily in mind. The company is no stranger to the North American markets, slowly but steadily increasing their presence over the last few years. Their commitment to continue to increase their presence in the United States became apparent with the recent founding of a US-based service center at California for seamless after-sales support.
A quick look at the company's website hints that they are strongly, if not primarily, focused on the development and marketing of PSUs. Be Quiet! is currently offering over 30 different units that are divided into eight different series. In this review, we are taking a look at one of the company's most popular units, the Straight Power 11 750W PSU.
The Straight Power 11 series comprises six models, balanced between low-noise operation and high-power quality, all while trying to retain competitive price tags. Despite the designer's concept, the Straight Power 11 750W PSU currently retails for $140 plus shipping, a price that initially seems high for a unit that has an 80Plus Gold efficiency certification. The efficiency certification alone hardly says much about the overall performance and/or the quality of a PSU though, which we will thoroughly examine in this review.
| Power specifications ( Rated @ 50 °C ) | |||||
| AC INPUT | 100 - 240 VAC, 50 - 60 Hz | ||||
| RAIL | +3.3V | +5V | +12V | +5Vsb | -12V |
| MAX OUTPUT | 25A | 25A | 62.5A | 3A | 0.5A |
| 150W | 750W | 15W | 6W | ||
| TOTAL | 750W | ||||
Packaging and Bundle
We received the Straight Power 11 750W PSU in an aesthetically minimalistic but very sturdy cardboard box. Only a subtle image of the PSU itself stands out of the all-black front side of the box. Be Quiet! limits the text on the front of the box to the basic features of the unit, but plenty of details can be found on the sides and rear. The thick walls of the box and the polystyrene foam packaging provide ample protection during shipping.
The bundle of the Straight Power 11 750W PSU is basic, limited to just the necessary AC power cable, four black mounting screws, a few cable ties, and a simple user's manual. Two cable straps are also included and are holding together the two bundles of modular cables that come with the unit. The Straight Power 11 750W PSU is an all-modular design, meaning that every cable is detachable, including even the main 24-pin ATX cable. Every wire and connector is black but also every cable is a classic cable with black sleeving covering it. There are no "flat", ribbon-like cables supplies with the Straight Power 11.
At this point we should also mention that Be Quiet! is offering an "upgrade check" via their website, allowing users to check whether their older Be Quiet! PSU has cables compatible with this (or any other) new unit. The company is trying to retain at least partial compatibility between the cables of different PSU series, so it is relatively easy to switch from a smaller and/or older PSU to a new model, especially when cable management/routing is an extensive job.
| Be Quiet! Straight Power 11 750W | ||
| Connector type | Hardwired | Modular |
| ATX 24 Pin | - | 1 |
| EPS 4+4 Pin | - | 1 |
| EPS 8 Pin | - | 1 |
| PCI-E 6+2 Pin | - | 4 |
| PCI-E 8 Pin | - | - |
| SATA | - | 11 |
| Molex | - | 4 |
| Floppy | - | 1 |
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Death666Angel - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
Thanks for the review! I generally like BeQuiet stuff. I have a Dark Rock Pro 2 that I bought used for cheap as my CPU cooler and a Straight Power E9-CM 480W PSU that I also bought cheap used. That gives me a pretty much silent PC in combination with a Core i5-4570S @ 1V @3.6GHz and a 960 GTX graphics card. This seems to have missed its mark a bit, they are usually pretty good about the noise levels. Their Dark Rock Pro coolers trade blows with Noctua ones while usually being a bit quieter.One thing I would like to ask about this statement: "the efficiency diving below 75% when the load is lower than about 40 Watts."
Will you be able to maybe give us an article detailing idle power consumption of current generation (maybe even older generation) hardware, to see how relevant such a deficiency is? If I were to buy a 750W PSU, it would be for a top of the line overclocked 8 core CPU and a smiliar, top of the line overclocked GPU. A reasonable overclock on air would likely still mean the system draws less than 500W with a handful of HDDs/SSDs and no weird stuff. What would be the idle power draw of such a system. Maybe compare an overclock via offset to one via fixed voltage? Is 40W a reasonable target for idle power draw of modern, high end systems? How are the default BIOS settings regarding power saving mechanisms set?
And to be fair to BeQuiet, at 40W, the absolute power consumption of the PSU is still rather small. The Corsair SF450 Platinum has about an 80% efficiency rate at 40W (cold test) and the BeQuiet about 70%. If my maths checks out, the power draw at the wall is 57W vs. 50W. If your PC idels 24/7/365 at German electric bill prices (about 24C/kWh for me), you'd pay 14€ more vs more efficient designs. Yes, it's a deficiency they need to work on for the next generation, other manufacturers are better about it. But I'd still pick this PSU than one bundled with a standard PC case or one from Thermaltake, Chieftec, LC-Power and other more or less no-name brands without reviews. :)
Gastec - Thursday, November 8, 2018 - link
My old PC (i7-860, GTX 670, 8 GB DDR3 1600 MT/s, two SSDs, one HDD, 1 cpu fan, 2 case fans) idles at 35-40 W. According to this article https://www.anandtech.com/show/11180/the-nvidia-ge... their system with a GTX 1080Ti idled at 76 W. Other newer systems out there seem to idle at ~90-95W (which I find a bit too much).On Amazon.de: the be quiet! Straight Power 11 750W is €125, the Corsair SF-450 Platinum costs €108, but it's a 450W PSU. The 600W SF-600 Platinum costs €120.
The least expensive Corsair 750W Platinum PSU, the HX750 is €140.
Ravenmaster - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
Last month I RMA'd a bequiet! Silent Loop 280mm CPU cooler because after 2 months the pump went faulty and started rattling like mad. This week I had to RMA my bequiet! Dark Power Pro 11 (1200w) because it was making a popping sound when i switched it on, followed by sparks coming out of the back. Had put my old EVGA PSU back in and switch the CPU cooler for my old Corsair H100i. The older parts are louder but at least they're not faulty and they do the job. Never gonna buy bequiet! components again. Their case fans are second to none but their components are trash for some strange reason.s.yu - Wednesday, November 21, 2018 - link
Hence the exclamation mark? ;)