be quiet! Pure Power 11 (600 Watt) PSU review - Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

Revision 11 of the Pure Power series has been revamped and updated towards 2018. By doing so be quiet! offers an incredibly silent product (and they already were silent). The PSU has seen modest tweaks with better/more internal heatsinks. The biggest Plus (pardon the pun) is that the Pure Power 11 series now is Gold certified. Imho Gold is the new sweet spot in efficiency. I mean Platinum, Titanium offer merely a few percents more in efficiency whereas the Gold specced PSU is simply really good and more affordable. You also need to look at the workload, Platinum makes sense if your PC runs 24/7. But if you game a couple of hours per day, it all becomes very trivial and almost irrelevant. We have no doubt about the quality, stability, and efficiency of this PSU series. It really performed spot on where it needs to be. That said, Good to see is that the warranty was 3-years, this has now been increased to 5-years. If as a company you do not 100% trust your product, then you certainly will not give it a higher warranty.

Overall the PP11 is an incremental update that places focus on subtle improvements, yet mostly internally, you do need to realize that this PSU is really silent. A big important factor these days are the looks, and yeah the Pure power series looks great in its black design. A huge plus is a totally modular design with nice all black cables and connectors. It is a PSU series designed for the mainstream to high-end PC DIY builders who want a bit of extra over a regular power supply, the guys with an X370 or Z390 based system and say a fairly high-end processor combined with a nice high-end to enthusiast class dedicated graphics card. The efficiency of the Pure Power series seems spot on gold certification compared to other PSUs in this category, next to the modular design this, without doubt, is a very aesthetically pleasing PSU series. 

A word about efficiency

As with any power supply, half the maximum load rating is the point of equilibrium, the sweet-spot where it'll be the most efficient and in this case that is 92% efficiency (at 230 Volts). As such, the 300~450 Watt range is actually a sweet-spot as your average gaming PC with one dedicated (yet high end) graphics card would consume roughly that during a hefty gaming session. Let's assume 175 Watts for the GPU + 100 Watts for CPU and cooling and then add to that the mobo chipset and your connected devices.

So how much money do you actually save each year if you have a gaming PC compared top all these efficiency certifications? Well, Let's create a showcase. Ranging from Bronze too platinum you can buy more efficient power supplies. Over the years, it has become a bit of a marketing thing really as differences a few percents really is the margin what we are talking about here. That's also the same percentual difference in your electric bill.

So above you can see a quick chart I created. Let's say you game 3 hours per day, 5 days a week for a full year. During gaming, you'll consume 350 Watts (= a fairly high-end setup with perhaps a bit of overclocking right?). We assume you pay 20 cents for each KWh of energy (the average going rate in the EU). As you can see, from Bronze to Platinum the difference really is to give or take 6 euros at best for over a thousand hours of gaming. That's a full year calculation.  Overall, my advice, go with silver or gold if priced nicely, the Platinum power supplies often carry a big price premium. I do want to state though that efficiency also says something about internal build quality. Follow your instinct I'd say. Now, this chart was based on gaming, of course, if you'd have your PC active 24/7, you'll want an efficient as possible PSU to save on energy consumption.

Aesthetics

The Pure Power 11 series looks great with its dark accents and all black cabling. The PSU sticks to a new smaller ATX length at 16 cm. The cables are delivered in a dark black coating including all dark connectors, which is nice to see. Modular designs are the way to go. You use what you need in terms of wiring, keeping the innards clean and tidy, plain and simple. And overall it is a great looking power supply.
 

Pricing

Here are the final MSRPs in bold. Also included current Pure Power 10 MSRPs in Euro for you to compare to. Btw, the CM models have 100% removable cables (e.g. the CPU ATX power cable).

Stability

Stability wise we have very little, actually nothing, to complain about as at half load, say 300~350 watts, voltages remained to drop dead in sync. But we'll trust that some other reviews will offer you some ripple tests yet have no doubt the product will come out totally clean. Kick-ass is obviously the option for four rails, the tested 850W model has enough power to handle two fairly high-end graphics cards. Realistically for a PC with a single graphics card, a 650 or 750 model would likely be better suited as a recommendation. If you are an overclocker/tweaker .. leave some reserve and go with 750 or this 850W model. 

 
 
Final words

The higher power supplies go into efficiency, the more expensive they get. Within that mindset, the table I created at the top of this page should be your guideline. For a gamer, gaming a few hours per day you need to wonder if you need a Platinum or even Titanium power supply as the price premium might be way more then what it will cost you in energy. Looking at it from the other side, the less power you consume the better, of course. But that choice would come at a price premium. Also if you have a PC that is powered on most part of the day, here I'd advice a more energy efficient power supply as well, the volume in usage hours is pretty much the deciding factor if you ask me. The Pure power 11 pricing is a notch higher overall compared to more 'regular' power supplies. But that money is well invested; it's a gold rated PSU, perfectly in the balance of what most people seek efficiency wise. Nice to see is the 5-year warranty. The build quality we cannot complain about, and the power supply is really silent. Revision 11 of Pure power ticks the right boxes from dark design, being modular, efficient and very silent. It's the new gold standard, recommended by Guru3D.com

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