be quiet! Pure Power 9 CM 700 Watt PSU Review - Introduction

Atomic number:47 - Silver
be quiet! Pure Power series 9 CM 700 Watt

be quiet! (no, not you) has updated the Pure Power series towards revision 9 and tagged it with 'CM' for cable management. We test the new 700 Watt power supply. The series has been fiddled and fooled around with and comes with some new tweaks, features and hey now, is an 80 Plus Silver certified product series. With the ever-growing demand of power consumption this is a highly modular, with two 12V rails (for this 700 Watt model), highly energy efficient product that remains very silent. Now personally I say give me a single rail anytime of the day, but if you prefer multi-rails, here's your chance man!

Efficiency wise anno 2016 things just do not matter that much anymore, we have seen most power supplies move upwards into the region of gold/silver/platinum as well, everything else is already invented. So the only thing left is efficiency and making the best quality PSU your money can get you. The 700 Watt PSU as tested today has an 80 Plus Silver certification meaning at 50% load this puppy is 89% efficient (at 230V). Bronze, Silver are the more affordable units, but truthfully Gold or Platinum and Titanium is what you want, that upper stack in hardware is more expensive though. So, it's 89% efficient at 50% load at 230V and 88% at 110V. Efficiency matters; years ago PSUs were as low as 70% efficient (that's not a joke as efficiency simply was not a topic of discussion), meaning that 30% of the used power simply vanishes somewhere in that electric circuitry, whilst you are paying for it on that electricity bill. Allow me to explain a little more simply, if your components consume 500W directly from the PSU then with that 70% efficient product you'd actually use and draw 650W from your wall power socket. With a Silver certified PSU you'd be using 550W. The math is that simple. 

Notice the 'CM' in the Pure Power 9 naming schema? That's short for cable management. A couple of years ago a new trend picked up, the consumers all created a demand for modified PCs. The dull beige painted PCs had to go. We wanted nicely shaped, cooled and preferably lit PCs with side windows so we could actually look at the inside of the PC. Really cool to look at but that created another issue. We now had the beautiful looking cases where you could look inside, but that resulted in pulling the hairs out of your head as there were yellow, red, and black wires coming from the PSU everywhere. So the power supply received another function; aesthetics. It needs to look nice. By organizing cables and by giving you the option to actually choose the wires you want to use, another problem was solved. We call it cable management these days. Sound levels coming from your PSU; the high rated PSUs typically have one fan and up to a few years ago a lot of manufacturers did not pay attention to all dat noise, then... I have to say it, the Pure Power 9 is one of the most silent products we've ever tested. For Be Quiet! the third factor was utilizing silent high-performance fans preferably with smart-fan technology (variable fan speeds based on heat).  

The fan used on the model 9 is an iteration based upon the Silent and Pure Wings models yet seems to be a customized revision. The be quiet! Pure Power series 9 will become available in several models ranging from 400 up-to 700 Watt models with the silver certification and sound dampening features. But have a peek at the product and then let's head onwards into the review.