If you’re building a cheap low end PC for yourself, family or friends then you’ll want a decent power supply that won’t fail, is power efficient but won’t cost almost as much as the rest of the build. The Be Quiet Supply reviewed here may well fit that niche.
Introduction
If you’re anything like me then you’ll end up volunteering yourself as a PC builder to friends and family and you’ll find yourself trying to meet stringent budgets where gaming and high end graphics are not a priority at all. It’s at time like these that you need to be able to cut costs without cutting on quality. An AMD or Intel processor is always good quality no matter where your budget puts you in the range and there are no cheaper makes of x86 processors to choose from. However when it comes to power supplies there are many options in the budget range and it may be diffifult to pick a good quality supply from all the rest.
Many cases that are for sale will come with a power supply included and there’s a temptation to go with the included one. Unfortunately you don’t know what the included power supply will be like until you actually get your hands on it. Usually though they are cheap and of inferior quality. If they do manage to push out their rated wattage then you can be sure it won’t be quietly or efficiently and definitely not both at the same time which is what we want from a power after all. It’s worth spending a small amount on a power supply that’s from a decent manufacturer and offers an 80+ efficiency.
This is the kind of situation where the 350W Be Quiet Pure Power comes in nicely. At the time of writing it’s availble from ebuyer at only £29.99, which is not much for he peace of mind that having a decent supply brings. Being 80+ efficient means that it will probably save you that much money in the long run anyway in electricity usage.
Packaging and Contents
Neatly packaged into a mainly black cardboard box the Be Quiet supply is quite unassuming, kind of as you’d expect from such a product. Open it up and unsurprisingly the majority of the content is the supply itself and the mass of cables attached. The cables do come with two velcro ties attached though which is a nice addition. You also get a set of screws that are black to match the colour scheme of the supply itself, a mains power lead and a small but informative user guide.
The cardboard box that it comes in
As mentioned the power supply is finished in black, it’s again quite unassuming in a matt finish and it has the usual power specifications wrtten on the side.
First Impressions
Compared to a ‘free’ power supply that you might get included in a case this Be Quiet supply appears to have a far superior build quality and certainly weighs a lot more when you hold it in your hand. The weight of a power supply is significant because the extra weight can be put down to the use of larger more effective heatsinks. Having better heatsinks will help the power supply’s components run cooler and cooler means longer lasting and more efficient running.
Airflow through the power supply is provided by a single bottom mounted 120 mm fan. This draws air into the supply from within your case and pushes it through the power supply and out of the rear vents. This type of cooling is generally prefered to the traditional method of using a rear mounted 80 mm fan. The larger 120 mm fan leads to quieter operation due to having a slower fan speed for the same air flow added to which pushing air with a fan is usually more effective than sucking air.
Out of the box
Another important consideration when buying a power supply is the number and variety of cables/connectors attached. This is a budget range supply so nothing here is modular and the cables are not braided at all. Four sets of cables sprout out of the Be Quiet 350W supply, first off are the two sets offering the connectors that everyone will definitely be using no matter what kind of PC they have. By this I’m refering of course to the 24 pin and 4 pin motherboard connectors. The 24 pin connector is actually a 20+4 pin connector which can be used on motherboard having either a 20 pin or a 24 pin header.
The other two sets of cables are for all the drives etc. You get 4 SATA connectors, 3 Molex connectors and a floppy connector, this really should be enough for a lower end PC where things like multiple WD Raptors in RAID0 and graphics cards requiring additional power are unlikely. There are a mixture of connectors on each of the cables meaning that you can have one cable that remains at the top end of a typical tower case for the optical drive(s) and one cable that runs down to feed the hard drive(s) and it doesn’t matter whether the drives are SATA or Molex powered. On the end of one of the cables is the floppy connector, this can still be a useful connector to have available as SD to IDE adapters like this
Installation
This is a standard ATX power supply and being a low power version it’s very easy for Be Quiet to fit all the internals into a standard ATX footprint. As such there are no unusual requirements for installation and this supply will slot straight in, you may already have screws from an existing supply but I’d swap these for the ones supplied as they are black and in keeping with the style. As mentioned it lends itself well to using one cable for opticals and one cable for hard drives etc. I installed it this way and it all worked out quite nicely, including using the molex connector on the hard drive chain for a case fan. With a power supply like this most installations will be in either midi towers or µATX towers so all the cables should be plenty long enough. If you have a bigger case or one with a bottom mounted power supply then you might have problems with the cables being too short.
And fitted into a mid tower case
For my hard drives I found the spacing between the SATA connectors to be a little too much but obviously it’s impossible to suit everyone with connector spacing and at least with too much you can space your drives wider where as too little may not fit at all. The one missing connector from this power supply is of course the PCIe connector, this will have been left off by Be Quiet because at 350W the power supply is not rated highly enough for graphics cards that require this connection. For instance XFX recommend a 450W supply for their HD4770 which is probably the lowest card that requires a 6 pin PCIe connector. If however you have an otherwise minimal system with a single hard drive, a single DVD drive and a lower end CPU then I’m sure the power supply would be sufficient for a card such as the HD4770. This means that you’d need to use a 4-pin Molex to 6-pin PCIe adapter cable.
Conclusion
For a low end power supply Be Quiet have done a good job, they’ve certainly hits the price point. It seems to be well made, comes with some cable straps and matching black screws. However I would have liked braided cables, at least on the 24 pin connector, the unbraided looks a bit scrappy and doing it yourself just takes too long and is too much hassle. I’m sure it doesn’t cost a lot for a power supply manufacturer to add this to a product.
The thumb screws aren’t included
Of course one of the most important aspects of a power supply is its longevity and this is something that I cannot report on, yet. If however it fails then you can be sure that I’ll pass on details of its failure just as I did with my Sitecom Gaming Router failure report. Anyway, it’s not a power supply for the power user but for the discerning enthusiast building a PC for your average Joe it may just hit the spot, just remember that there’s no PCIe connector.
Ratings and Summary
Pros
- Good value for money
- Quiet 120 mm fan
- Stylish black finish
- Seems to be well built
Cons
- No PCIe connector
- No cable braiding
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