Page 3 - Physical Look - Inside
As always, we opened up our be quiet! Dark Power Pro 13 1300W power supply to take a detailed look at what is going on inside. Please note that doing this at home will void your 10-year warranty, thanks to the warranty seal be quiet! applied over one of the attachment screws. It is great it comes with a 10-year warranty, which is the industry standard for performance PSUs. For your benefit, we cracked ours open, so you do not need to. There are no user serviceable parts inside.
Disassembling the be quiet! Dark Power Pro 13 1300W was both straightforward and a bit challenging with the removal of over a dozen screws, depending on how far you want to go. All of the screws are hex screws, which many people do not have a screwdriver for. Of course, we have all the tools here at APH Networks, so taking them off was a breeze. However, the way the enclosure is designed is a bit confusing, so disassembling it will require some trial-and-error at first.
Our photo above shows an overhead view of its internal components. Its OEM is CWT, a reputable OEM since 1993. The Dark Power Pro 13 1300W is built on the same platform as the 1600W model. The Dark Power Pro 13 series is pretty similar to the Dark Power Pro 12 series, except with a little more wattage and adds ATX 3.0 and PCIe 5.0 support. It features an LLC full bridge topology with DC-to-DC converters. At first glance, the build quality appears to be excellent. There are two main heatsinks inside. All of them are painted black, located on the primary side. The secondary side has a bunch of small heatsinks located over the DC-to-DC converter MOSFETs.
Pulling the enclosure apart, I had to remove the fan frame halves and impeller separately to get to the internal inspection. The fan frame is separated into two parts that are attached to the side of the PSU, while the impeller is screwed into three poles underneath it. This split fan inlet design increases airflow while reducing turbulence for lower noise according to the company.
The transient filter stage is the first input stage of a computer power supply, so we will take a look at that first. be quiet!, regardless of the OEM, has done a great job in the past to make sure their power supplies met or exceeded the recommended requirements in the past, and the Dark Power Pro 13 1300W is no exception. The be quiet! Dark Power Pro 13 1300W has one metal oxide varistor, two metalized polyester X-capacitors, six ceramic Y-capacitors, and two ferrite coils. This is two times the amount of X and three times the amount of Y capacitors than recommended. Considering some PSUs have missing MOVs, I am happy to see it here as this component is used to stabilize spikes from the AC line.
The active PFC circuit featured on the be quiet! Dark Power Pro 13 1300W uses two Vishay General Semiconductor LVB2560 bridge rectifiers on both sides of the largest heatsink. At 115V, the maximum rectified forward current capacity with heatsink is 25A each, so you can theoretically pull up to 5750W (25A * 2 diodes * 115V) from the bridge rectifier at 100% efficiency. Of course, this is limited by the fact that it is not 100% efficient and also neglects the fact that not every component in the system is able to keep up.
Further down the line, on the side of the largest heatsink facing away from the primary capacitors, we can see two Infineon IPA60R060P7 power transistors. Each is rated for up to 30A at 100c. These transistors present a maximum resistance of 60 mΩ and typical resistance of 49 mΩ when turned on according to the manufacturer's data sheet. This on characteristic is called Static Drain-Source On-Resistance, or commonly abbreviated as RDS(on). The more efficient the component is, the lower the RDS(on) value, since it wastes less power with lower resistance.
Two Infineon IDH10G65C6 boost diodes are adjacent to the APFC MOSFETs. There are also two ON Semiconductor MOSFETs in the same area, but I could not see their model numbers. On the add-in board above, we see two Texas Instruments UCD3138A digital controllers for the LLC circuit, synchronous rectifier, voltage regulation, and protective circuits.
On the primary side, we can see three Japanese brand capacitors, including two from Nippon Chemi-Con and one from Nichicon. 100% Japanese brand capacitors are specified on the marketing material, so this is to be expected. Our 1300W version of be quiet!'s Dark Power Pro 13 series power supply incorporates three capacitors, two 470µF x 400V and one 680µF x 400V, in parallel for a total of 1620µF capacitance. They are rated at 105c, whereas more value-oriented power supplies usually use 85c rated capacitors.
Four Alpha & Omega AOTF29S50 MOFSETs, located on the smaller heatsink next to the bulk capacitors, are used as the main switchers on the Dark Power Pro 13 1300W power supply. Each is certified for up to 18A at 100c, maximum resistance of 150 mΩ, and typical resistance of 130 mΩ at 25c.
On the secondary side, we can see more Nippon Chemi-Con and Nichicon capacitors rated at 105c. All rectifiers produce the +12V out, while the +5V and +3.3V outputs are generated from the +12V output using a DC-to-DC converter within as with modern high efficiency power supplies. Twelve Infineon BSC016N06NS power MOSFETs are responsible for generating the +12V output, located on two vertical boards next to the transformers. The BSC016N06NS's rated continuous drain current is 225A at 25c. It has an RDS(on) value of 1.6 mΩ maximum and 1.4 mΩ typical at 25c.
Six additional MOSFETs are responsible for generating the +5V and +3.3V outputs, located on the same vertical boards. Unfortunately, I was unable to identify their part numbers. Note the minor rails still use analog controllers rather than digital controllers.
Here is a shot at the bottom of the be quiet! Dark Power Pro 13 1300W's main board. There are not many components of interest here other than two Silicon Labs Si8233BD IC drivers.
At the back, we have a large daughterboard covering the entire rear panel for the modular cable sockets. A Weltrend WT7518 monitoring IC for over/under current and over/under voltage protection can be seen. The datasheets for all components mentioned in this review can be found on their respective manufacturer's websites.
All connection points are soldered directly to the add-on PCB after the secondary stage to reduce power transmission loss compared to having wires. The output connector configuration can be seen on the previous page. Overall, the internal build quality of be quiet!'s Dark Power Pro 13 1300W is excellent. Components are arranged very well for optimal cooling with practically no wires running around inside, and solder points on its black PCB is quite clean in general. I would say the be quiet! Dark Power Pro 13 1300W is generally excellent with regards to the selection of components used under the hood, appropriate for its performance class.
Lastly, we see a 135mm fan that provides cooling to the be quiet! Dark Power Pro 13 1300W's internal components. It is connected to the mainboard using a 2-pin connector. A 135mm fan is only marginally smaller than the 140mm maximum you can fit in an ATX power supply, and it is beneficial in most cases in providing lots of airflow at lower speeds for quiet operation.
The fan is a be quiet! Silent Wings BQ SIW3-13525-HF, as shown in our photo above. The Silent Wings BQ SIW3-13525-HF is a fluid dynamic bearing fan with a 6-pole fan motor specified at 0.56A for a maximum of speed of 2600 RPM. There is no semi-fanless mode, but the fan speed will vary with load and be quiet! uses a very quiet profile. Fans with fluid dynamic bearings generally have much longer lifespans compared to sleeve bearing fans, and are quite suitable for this application.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Minor Tests and Conclusion
