be quiet! Straight Power 12 1500W, ATX 3.1

If you are building a mid-range gaming PC, this is likely more power than you’ll ever need. However, if you are a professional user, an overclocker, or someone building a flagship rig with components like the RTX 5090, or even workstation cards, then the be quiet! Straight Power 12 1500W is one of the best choices on the market. It combines massive power with whisper-quiet operation and top-tier efficiency. At an MSRP of £349.99, it is an investment, but given the 10-year warranty and the sheer quality on display, it is an investment that is well worth making for the high-end enthusiast.

Just like with previous reviews I feel I need to point out the obvious and so once again since my test rig can’t draw much over 1KW whenever I test power supply units with higher outputs my results may not be 100% accurate (even if I had a SunMoon/Chroma tester that wouldn’t change much). This of course applies only for systems that can actually manage to squeeze more power than my test rig does. That being said even then rail stability shouldn't be affected much (if at all), what will be affected however are noise levels and so for example in the case of the Straight Power 12 1500W if you do manage to draw its full output, I expect that noise levels will undoubtedly climb to over 50dBA (from just 5-10cm away that is). With that out of the way rail stability is very good, the Silent Wings 135mm fan is pretty much inaudible from 1 meter away (at least up to 1024W) and as for build quality well it’s exactly what you’d expect from a unit by be quiet! and their OEM partners (again, probably FSP in this case). On top of that you’re getting two 12VHPWR 600W connectors which means you’re set for all of the upcoming GeForce RTX models by NVIDIA (and Radeon RX models since AMD will probably use the same connector eventually). The Straight Power 12 line of power supply units by be quiet! was unveiled roughly 2 months ago but it was only recently that these models became available in the market and so currently the 1500W variant retails for USD379.90 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 338.70Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de). Again, this may not seem as quite affordable for the majority of people but it’s worth point out that models with well over 1KW of power output are mostly for people who may like to overclock the living daylights out of their CPU and GPU (or people who just have lots to spend on a new system, also who knows, future graphics cards may feature multi-link once more). Cost aside the latest Straight Power 12 1500W PSU by be quiet! scores high on everything and for that it deserves the Platinum Award.

With the Straight Power 12 1500W being £100 cheaper than the DARK POWER 13 1600W, PC builders get a near 30% discount by dropping their PSU power providing capacity by 100 watts, dropping their PSU efficiency a smidge, and dropping some features that most users will regard as unnecessary. This factor will make the Straight Power 12 1500W a no brainer for most buyers, especially if they want to push more of their budget into other areas of their high-powered workstation.