| be quiet StraightPower 700w Power Supply Review |
| Written by Maxit | |||||
 Price: £80 / $150 Supplier: be quiet! Manufacturer: Listan be quiet! Now that we have everybody's attention, we thought you might like to hear about the new Straightpower range of power supplies from the be quiet! range. Sometimes I don't know how we think of these catchy introductions. Listan, one of the biggest computer components distrubuters in Europe, developed this new range of Straight Power psu's for enthusiasts who want high-performance power supplies, stable technology and outstanding quality without the big price tag. The stable ranges from the entry level 350 watt baby right up to the 700 watt behomoth with enough juice to power a small town. With efficiency (up to 83%), the units have up to 4 rails, up to 8 SATA connectors and up to 2 PCIe connectors to give reliable performance for every computer, regardless of whether it is a workstation or server. In the labs today, we have the range topping 700 watt power plant. Our MaXit Monsta machine will be doing the honors with it's 3.8Ghz Core 2 Duo processor and Danger Den watercooling system to stress this juicy contender to the limits.  Let the torturing begin. The specs for this model are as you would expect from the top model, huge.
Cooling
Technology
Service Plus
The packaging and finish are top notch with a sleek black mirrored exterior and honey comb air holes enhancing the overall look of the product.
In the MaXit Monsta machine it looked right at home along with all the UV watercooling equipment. In fact, it's good enough to be a show piece whatever your rig might be. The fan is a low noise affair and in use the psu is barely audible. In fact the Antec 120mm low noise fans strapped to the MaXit Monsta reservoir make more noise on the lowest power setting. Even under full load it's still perfect for quiet work environments.
A 110V/220V switch is not needed, thanks to the units auto switching. The ATX power connector allows for 20 pin and 24 pin connections - you can clip off the extra 4 pin connector to convert between the two.  In The LabsOnce installed in our 3.8Ghz watercooled test bed machine, the 700w Straightpower psu settled down to business and powered through our 8 hour Prime95 torture test. During this time we went about our usual business of photoshop, mp3's and Playboy.com browsing and noted down the power rails under idle and full load settings using our trusty Multimeter. The cpu vcore was set at 1.6volts to achieve an overclock on our Core 2 Duo from 2.4GHz to 3.8GHz and the rest of the Asus P5B delux motherboard voltages were pumped up to their max to achieve stability.
The Straightpower 700w power supply maintained near identical readings under load as it did while
idling. A fine demonstration of the quality and reliability of this unit,
producing clean crisp power with seemingly little to no ripple! The 12v rail was particularly generous and should appeal to overclockers who demand rock solid stability when pushing a system to the max. The Bottom Linebe quiet! have produced another fine addition to their excellent stable of power supplies. If you want a top of the line power supply you'd be bonkas not to check out the Straightpower 700w unit. Good looks, low noise and rock solid rails under extreme conditions. What more could any PC enthusiast ask for. Decent packaging and excellent customer support and aftersales service make this a real winner. In fact we liked this psu so much we chucked out our noisy PC Power and Cooling Turbo SLI unit and replaced it with this. This power supply is just about as perfect as you can get and a worthy winner of our coveted editors choice award.Pros
Cons
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