be quiet! Dark Power Pro 12 (1500W) PSU Review

How Much Does it Cost?

While officially launching this new power supply range on August 25th, be quiet! has confirmed that it will be available for purchase on September 8th. In terms of pricing, depending on which power variant you pick, the Dark Power Pro 12 costs:

So, rather expensive, but is it worth it? Well, in a nutshell, absolutely! Comparatively speaking, while you can often find high-wattage output power supplies or super-high efficiency rated models, it’s very difficult to find PSUs that combine both for a price as reasonable as this.

Performance

While we could not perform any of our standard tests for this power supply, it’s hard to deny that this has clearly been built as a strong and powerful PSU. Better still, with a colossally huge 10-year warranty, be quiet! is more than a little confident that the Dark Power Pro 12 has been built to last.

As we have noted on several occasions throughout this review, the Dark Power Pro 12 has not primarily been designed for standard PC systems. Nor, indeed, your ‘average’ gaming builds. We’re definitely in the realms of workstation or extreme-overclocking here and, under those remits, this power supply should perform admirably.

Practicality & Functionality

The Dark Power Pro 12 is significantly larger than standard PSU models and, as such, before buying this you are going to want to make certain that your chassis is spacy enough to accommodate this relatively bulky creature. Putting that one minor aspect to one side, however, the remaining aspect of this PSU design is absolutely flawless from top to bottom!

More so, if you do take your extreme overclocking seriously, the option to directly control whether the 12v runs on a single or multiple rails (via a simple switch attachable to your PCI case slots) should make it an exceptionally tempting proposition.

Should I Buy One?

The be quiet! Dark Power Pro 12 is not going to be a power supply suited for everyone. For many, however, we suspect that this is going to be exactly what they’ve been looking for. Not only has it been designed to an exceptionally high standard, but it also offers levels of functionality and performance well in excess of its rivals.

Yes, the price tag does make it a hefty investment, combining a huge wattage output with the highest efficiency rating around, however, this is, without a doubt, one of the strongest PSUs around at the moment. And that applies to practically every aspect you can think of!