Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

PSUs: The source of DC power for all components in the PC & often a big noise source.

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twinbee
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Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by twinbee » Mon Jun 01, 2015 5:17 pm

After around five years of service, my super-quiet Nexus 430 has finally given up the ghost (burning smell - probably produced by too much dust in there, and so cooling wasn't adequate?).

Anyway, I'm looking for a new super-quiet contender, and I have my eyes on the BeQuiet brand. I was wondering if I should go with the 'risky' Straight Power 10 - 400 watt (BN230). I say 'risky' because there aren't any reviews on the web. But apparently, it's supposed to be quite a bit quieter than the Pure Power L8 400W. See here for comparison.

Are there any major drawbacks to that versus the cheaper L8? The "Straight Power 10" is only around £10 more expensive, so it seems a no-brainer also considering its 5 year warranty (as opposed to the L8's 3 year), and its better efficiency.

Here are the two main overviews at their official site:

http://www.bequiet.com/en/powersupply/518
http://www.bequiet.com/en/powersupply/390

I would also be interested to see where the Straight Power 10 and my old Nexus 430 would fall on this chart:
http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/4643/9/ ... ise-levels

CA_Steve
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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Jun 01, 2015 7:20 pm

The Straight Power 10 is a decent PSU. Fan idles at an insanely low 200rpm as compared to the L7's 660rpm. Here's a review at Computer Base. Here's one from Hardware.info.

boost
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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by boost » Tue Jun 02, 2015 2:50 am

I have a Straight Power E9 and it's really quiet, I can never hear it. The Straight Power 10 is supposed to be a little better than that, for only £10 more get the Straight Power.

twinbee
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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by twinbee » Tue Jun 02, 2015 2:51 am

Do you know if the caps are good on it? Just out of interest, can anyone hear the Pure Power L8 from normal sitting distance in an otherwise super-quiet PC?

Any chance for a review of the P10 here at SPCR? :)

quest_for_silence
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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by quest_for_silence » Tue Jun 02, 2015 4:16 am

twinbee wrote:Any chance for a review of the P10 here at SPCR? :)

IIRC P10 and E10 have already reviewed here at SPCR.

twinbee
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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by twinbee » Tue Jun 02, 2015 9:34 am

Hmm, with apparently only two reviewed since Dec 2012, I doubt that: http://www.silentpcreview.com/section10.html

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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by quest_for_silence » Tue Jun 02, 2015 10:34 am

twinbee wrote:I doubt that

"Search" better (the Straight Power 10 600W is in 3 recent articles, the Dark Power 10 550W has its own too).

twinbee
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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by twinbee » Tue Jun 02, 2015 12:17 pm

Hmm, the best I could find was this: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1445-page2.html

It's something, but I was hoping for a full review and/or comparison of the Straight Power 10 with other PSUs.

Derpington
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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by Derpington » Tue Jun 02, 2015 1:44 pm

Jonnyguru reviewed the 800W version. It uses Teapo capacitors:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?na ... 5&reid=399

Tzeb
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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by Tzeb » Tue Jun 02, 2015 2:04 pm

It's 2015 FFS!!! Why does anyone care/talk about caps today? "Bad caps" is a 15 year old thing... Things have moved on since then. Chinese stuff is on par...

twinbee
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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by twinbee » Tue Jun 02, 2015 2:33 pm

Nice find about the review Derpington. Shame they didn't care too much about quietness.
It's 2015 FFS!!! Why does anyone care/talk about caps today?
Woah didn't expect that. Here's a couple of interesting quotes from this thread over at badcaps.net:

On 2014-06-16, mockingbird said: "12.5mm and 10mm Teapo SC may very well be almost comparable to top tier brands in terms of longevity. I've stopped doing mandatory replacements of them in PSUs. The 8mm Teapo SC are replace on sight however."

On 2014-10-19, madscientist159 said: "The larger Teapo caps were all OK; apparently the little 6mm and 10mm Teapos really hate heat."

2014 isn't exactly "years ago", so perhaps there may still be an element of truth to it. There are quite a few other reports from that thread (even in 2014 posts) about potentially poor quality in Teapo caps. I wonder if the Straight Power 10 uses 6mm, 10mm or 12.5mm caps...

Anyway, I've bought it now! :D The 5 year warranty gives me peace of mind to show that BeQuiet are putting their money where their mouth is.

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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by CA_Steve » Tue Jun 02, 2015 4:14 pm

Enjoy and please report back.

twinbee
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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by twinbee » Fri Jun 05, 2015 9:01 am

Enjoy and please report back.
But of course :)

PSU arrived a few days ago. Had chance today to hook it all up. First off though, I tried the paper clip trick to get the PSU fan to spin without being connected to the motherboard. It is indeed very quiet. In a near-silent room, if I put my ear right next to it, I could hear a tiny mildly broadband approx 10Khz-pitched click lasting about about 0.02s where the number of clicks was around 3 per second (I dare you to find someone else giving stats like that ;) ). The click sound completely disappeared with my ear around 0.5 to 1 metre away.

The fan is a very slow spinner. I think I saw it mentioned around 200 cycles per min on standby, and I can well believe that. I could almost read the logo printed on it as a result! This increased to around 400 cycles per min when I was stress testing the PC (a game and CPU torture test). I stopped the other two fans in the PC with my finger and put my ear next to the PSU. I couldn't hear it above any of the PC's electrical noise which was coming from god-knows-where (but was also very quiet). I don't think that noise belongs to the PSU in any case.

Despite the site saying there were no velcro straps, I had two supplied which was nice.

Here's a photo: http://www.skytopia.com/stuff/desktop-pc-psu.jpg
Last edited by twinbee on Fri Jun 05, 2015 11:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

CA_Steve
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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by CA_Steve » Fri Jun 05, 2015 10:04 am

Glad it worked out. Hey, what's the cpu under the box cooler? I'm surprised to see a box cooler amongst the Noctua fan and SP10 PSU :)

twinbee
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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by twinbee » Fri Jun 05, 2015 10:53 am

Intel Quad-core Q6600 - G0 stepping.

Excellent point about the stock fan/heatsink being the odd one out in the setup. However, hidden just out of sight is a nifty bit of hardware which forceably slows the CPU fan down. Due to the G0 stepping, Arctic Silver MX4 paste, and me being a bit risky, I keep it almost permanently running at a very low RPM which makes it almost silent.

I've also heard the stock CPU heatsink fares pretty favourably even against aftermarket heatsinks (I think the core is copper). So I haven't yet got round to upgrading it. Any of the latest Intel quad core CPU run without a fan (and using stock heatsink) I wonder?

FYI, I amputated the terribly noisy stock fan off the the EVGA NVIDIA 750Ti GPU, and put a software speed-controlled Noctua one in its place. It was a scary but exciting procedure.

Anyway, very happy with the PSU. If for some reason it breaks, I'll post back here.

(edited previous post to say 200 cycles per min instead of the error - 200 Hz!).

CA_Steve
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Re: Bequiet's new 'Straight Power 10' PSU

Post by CA_Steve » Fri Jun 05, 2015 4:08 pm

Stock heatsink: I think it's ok for the 54W Haswell and lower...and for your older Q6600 it could be ok. The older CPUs transferred heat better through the IHS, so a higher TDP could work. See my gaming PC thread in signature for what happens when you use the stock cooler with a Haswell i5.

fanless designs: all the Core M CPUs running at 7.5W can be configured for fanless operation :) For desktop CPUs, there are fanless solutions...but all utilize a lot more heatsink volume/weight than the stock cooler.

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