The be quiet! Power Zone 1000 W looks expensive for a Bronze unit, but there is more here than meets the eye. For starters, its true efficiency curve actually resembles that of a Gold, not Bronze unit, and it has excellent voltage regulation and very low ripple on the +12V rail. Its topology even allows for a long hold-up time despite its not-so-large bulk caps, and the fully modular cabling design along with its extra fan headers are the cherries on top. The good things about it don't stop there as the unit's excellent look and high build quality are a testament to be quiet!'s style. For last I left the very good but too strong FDB fan be quiet! chose for this PSU. Most of you would probably prefer a slower fan with less noise output at full load, but its fan profile is thankfully quite relaxed, which would have you push the unit very hard before it becomes a noisy beast. The main letdown is this unit's low official efficiency rating which will make it look like a poorly performing unit of low quality compared to Gold-certified PSUs. However, you will, if you have read this review thoroughly, which I hope you did before reading this paragraph, notice that its Gold-certified competition has nothing on the Power Zone 1000 W. be quiet!'s unit even registers higher efficiency than a few Gold and Platinum 1 kW PSUs at low loads, and only at normal loads does it fall behind a bit while still managing to pull off over 90% overall efficiency.

be quiet!'s PR assured me that they will try to offer the Power Zone 1000 W at a much lower price than 190 bucks through mail-in rebates, and I think that sales will improve significantly if they manage to lower the price to 140-150 bucks. I would also try to obtain a higher official 80 Plus certification since the PSU has much more potential than its now official 80 Plus Bronze badge indicates, as many users will unfortunately pay a lot of attention to its specs on paper instead of reading a review, which would have a Silver or even Gold-certified unit strike them as a much better choice.