Overall the be quiet! SP-E8 400W left me quite satisfied. It has very high efficiency for a plain Bronze unit and it's dead quiet even at full load and with 50°C operating temperature. The low noise is thanks to the low RPM and special design fan that utilizes Be Quiet's SilentWings technology. Also voltage regulation at +12V, the most important rail, was tight enough and ripple suppresion was ok. I spotted several performance related downfalls, which were the loose voltage regulation at 3.3V and the failure of the same rail in our 2nd Advanced Transient Response Test. There is also a large voltage spike on 12V, when the PSU is switched on immediately to full load- a not so realistic scenario, but it provides some insight into the PSU's performance at Turn On Transient loads that impose a danger to the health of any system. In terms of usability the Straight Power E8 400 W is restricted due to the lack of a second PCIe connector. Had the manufacturer combined the 8-pin EPS connector and the 4-pin one into a single 4+4 connector, they could have added a second PCIe connector instead and dramatically increased versatility. Another option would have been to use two 6 pin PCIe connectors instead of the single 6+2 connector, there is no graphics card that has just a single 8-pin PCIe.

To sum up, if low noise is important to you and you can live with a single PCIe connector 400 W power supply then the be Quiet! Straight Power E8 is a really good choice in this market segment, especially thanks to its competitive price.