Introduction
We would like to thank Be Quiet for supplying the review sample.
When you hear the name Be Quiet, the first thing that comes into your mind is minimal noise output since this is the primary goal of this company for all of their products. According to them the Dark Power Pro PSUs are already renowned as the world's quietest ones in the high-end category and of course their successors will honor this tradition. The Dark Pro P10 series will include six units with capacities ranging from 550W to 1200W. All feature state of the art technology to achieve Gold and Platinum efficiency levels (850W model).
The Dark Power Pro key features include the SilentWings 2 fan which with the Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDP) promises 300,000 hours lifespan and minimal noise output, the new platforms on which they are based exploit Full Bridge (Half Bridge for units under 750W) topologies along with synchronous rectifying and DC-DC converters in the secondary side and finally the overclocking key. The latter allows the user to easily choose among multi-rail +12V mode and single-rail mode. From the factory all units are set to multi-rail mode but if the user thinks that a single +12V rail is better for his system or if he simply doesn't want to worry about OCP triggering, then with a quick flip of a switch or by using a jumper he can combine all +12V rails into a single powerful one. This sounds interesting although we don't know how many users will actually use this feature.
Today's review sample will be a Dark Power Pro 10 with 550W capacity, the smallest member of the family. Despite its small capacity this unit packs some really interesting features which we are going to analyze later in this review.