Page 4 - Minor Tests and Conclusion
Power supplies are interesting products, because often, reviews of products in this category are conducted and tested in methods that make it difficult to distinguish one power supply from another. Many aspects must be taken into consideration. Certain criteria consist of efficiency, noise, power ripples, and of course the ability to pull out the rated specifications. Because many cannot afford such equipment to obtain results regarding those aspects, articles covering power supplies often come out with less than adequate and acceptable information. As this is a product report -- not a review -- what we are doing is a close examination of the power supply and the internal hardware and build. But what we can do for you is do some minor testing with the results we can present to you with and let other review sites with professional equipment show you the actual test results. We are not going to try to create useless test results by installing the power supply into the latest gaming rig and try to take readings from that, as this is not even remotely the correct way to test power supply units. We understand that many websites do that as a means of load testing, but the results, even if you use an oscilloscope and multimeter at each output location, it is not sufficient, nor does it accurately reflect the performance of the power supply.
Using our power supply tester which exerts minimal load on the power supply, the initial consumption was 17.4W as measured by our wall meter unit, indicating that the basic load-free power consumption of the power supply is higher than normal. Independent sources with professional load testing equipment showed the be quiet! Straight Power 12 1200W delivered excellent efficiency, especially at light loads, and decent voltage regulation and ripple suppression across all rails. This power supply unit has an 80 Plus Platinum rating.
Voltages with minimal load are accurate, which is a basic requirement of power supplies out of the box. This power supply is ATX 3.0 compliant and officially supports Alternative Sleep Mode with 100 to 150ms PG specifications, and this is indicative of the 120ms power good signal. The ATX design specifications state a PSU's PG is required to be between 100ms and 500ms, with 250ms maximum for Non-Alternative Sleep Mode and 150ms for Alternative Sleep Mode.
Active power correction is important to correct AC load line loss. In AC power, there are three components to it, as there is a phase difference between current and voltage. This makes up the power triangle, which consists of the following: Average usable power (P, measured in watts), reactive power (Q, denoted as VA-R), and total power (S, written as VA). While they all have the same physical units, it is not the same thing as aforementioned. What we want is the average usable power with as little wasted reactive power as possible. The total power provided over the AC line is the magnitude of the two combined (sqrt(P^2+Q^2)). Power factor can then be easily calculated by P divided by S. The ideal value is 1.00, and this is where active PFC comes in. The be quiet! Straight Power 12 1200W has active PFC, and the power factor will approach 0.99 with a nominal load.
The be quiet! Straight Power 12 1200W is an excellent power supply when it comes to noise. This unit unfortunately does not have a Cybenetics LAMBDA rating for noise. However, its Silent Wings BQ-SIW3-13525-HF-26 performs well in staying quiet. On a scale from 0 to 10 where 0 is silent and 10 is the loudest, I would rate the be quiet! Straight Power 12 1200W at 1.0/10 under moderate loads. Not only does the fan perform well, but its curves are made so it spins quite slowly.
be quiet! provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
While it may be second in the be quiet! lineup, the Straight Power 12 1200W proves to be a well-constructed power supply. Externally, the build looks quite good, and internally the layout and design are even better. There is a solid part selection internally with heatsinks and lots of open space to keep everything cool. We also have a 10-year warranty to back up users should anything go wrong. Third-party testing shows the be quiet! Straight Power 12 1200W to also be performant in efficiency, but we will need to wait for more certifications. The power allocation for each rail is sufficient. Furthermore, the number of connectors should be more than sufficient for any user, including two 12VHPWR connectors rated at 600W each. It is also both ATX 3.0 and PCIe 5.0 compliant, which is great to see. My only concern is the potentially misleading claim of exclusively using Japanese capacitors, when that is not necessarily the case. At the time of the review, the Straight Power 12 1200W is available for around $240, which is a decent price to pay for something that offers quite a lot of power while operating without much fanfare.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Minor Tests and Conclusion
