Be Quiet! Straight Power 12 850W Modular Power Supply

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If you’ve been on Amazon or Newegg then you’ve probably come across a brand called Be Quiet!, a German brand that makes PC components made for efficiency and low noise before ostentatiousness. Their Straight Power 12 850W Modular Power Supply is one of their flagships that doesn’t skimp on power or discreetness for powerhouse machines.

In terms of appearance, you probably know that a fully modular ATX PSU is solely meant to be a metal box filled with capacitors, heatsinks, and a PCB. The Straight Power 12 is no different in that regard except for the internal components equipped with Premium-quality Japanese capacitors rated at 105°C for increased tolerances and long-term reliability, and better voltage stability with DC-to-DC power conversion technology and Synchronous Rectifier (SR) controllers.

All of that gets you a PSU that’s officially ‘80 PLUS Platinum’ certified, which provides extremely high operating efficiency of up to 94% that meets Energy Star 8.0 guidelines and theoretically lower power consumption. This also gets you quieter performance overall with a lightweight 135mm fan that gives off minimal vibration. Of course, it wouldn’t be unique if Be Quiet didn’t implement their own airflow design by way of a funnel-shaped air inlet for improved intake, and support for variable fan speed usage,

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X processor
• RAM: 32GB Kingston Fury Renegade 6400MHz DDR5 (16GBx2)
• Motherboard: ASRock X670E Pro RS AM5 ATX
• PSU: Be Quiet! Straight Power 12, 80Plus Platinum 850W
• HDD/SSD: 1TB Samsung 980 Pro MVne PCIe 4×4
• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 150MM Cooler

The Straight Power 12 can handle the latest hardware with its power rating. Whatever your machine is running from CPUs (Ryzen 7800X3D, Intel Core i9-13900K) to GPUs (Radeon RX 7900 XTX, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti) this PSU ran it dutifully and with a light hum at 26dB under load. Running wattage under average conditions for my tester was 375W which is quite good, while the load when running games or resource-dependent applications bumped the range up to 493-521W, which is well below this PSUs peak threshold.

The biggest denominator will be efficiency at maximum load (PLUS, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Titanium) and the Straight Power 12 achieved 93% efficiency. During my time the power supply did its job in near-complete silence and is probably intended for more demanding systems such as content production and workstations powered by Xeon and Threadripper processors with QUADRO GPUs. Fortunately, this PSU will give normal users undeniable peace of mind for hulking RGB-laden gaming machines too.

I have been thoroughly impressed with Be Quiet! products, and their Straight Power 12 850W Modular Power Supply is no exception compared to the typical Corsair, ASUS, and Thermaltake brands. As a matter of fact, you can likely find this unit for a few dollars less than the competition, further adding to its value proposition. Granted, it’s definitely not as flashy but still a solid and futureproof 80 PLUS Platinum power supply that won’t buckle under pressure. This one is worth looking into.