Be Quiet! Straight Power E9 580W Power Supply Review

Rating: 8.0.

Be Quiet! have been creating a wide range of power supplies now for many years, with a focus on high quality, low noise designs for enthusiast gaming and media system builds. Today we are looking at their latest Straight Power E9 580W power supply, an 80 Plus Gold certified modular design with full 5 year warranty.

The previous Straight Power E8 models were Be Quiet!'s best selling product line. The latest E9 range attempts to improve on overall performance, while maintaining a good value for money ratio. The new range of E9 series is based around eight new models… there are 400w, 450w, 500w, 600w and 700w supplies which are non modular. The modular versions are offered in 480W, 580W and 680W power output configurations.

The company have targeted four key areas for improvement with the E9 range:

1. lowering the audible noise levels. This is a key factor for a be quiet! product as they have earned a reputation for creating the quietest performing power supplies on the market. The E9 series has been upgraded to a new 135mm Silent Wings fan. This new model is a Fluid Dynamic Bearing design and offers some unique technologies and design enhancements to lower emitted noise.
2. Improving the efficiency. The new Straight Power E9 models are now 80 Plus Gold certified. This is handled via a new topology design – Active Clamp plus SR (synchronous rectifier) as well as the use of newly developed integrated ciruitry which provide active control of critical power supply functions.
3. enhanced voltage stability and lowering ripple current levels, specifically on the 12V rails. They claim that a typical gaming PC may be drawing 85% of the power from the 12V rails at full load, so this is critical.
4. warranty has been improved to 5 years, from three years which was offered via the previous range of products.

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