be quiet! Straight Power 11 750w Power Supply Review

be quiet! Straight Power 11 750W Power Supply Review

Following on from our previous review of the be quiet! Straight Power 10 600W Power Supply review, we have the newer and updated model in for testing in the shape of the Straight Power 10 750W! The German power and the well known cooling giant was established in 2002 and from then, it didn’t take long to plough through the industry collecting accolade and awards along the way.

The OEM used for the new Straight Power 11 range which was announced at CES 2018 is FSP, which have been one of the stalwarts of the OEM PSU industry for a long time. The be quiet! Straight Power 11 range starts from 450W and goes up to 1000W in total, varying in price depending on your region and retailer of choice. All of the be quiet! Straight Power 11 power supplies feature over temperature protection as well as surge protection, but none of them feature overcurrent protection on the 12V rail which is a little disappointing given the high price premium commanded for these units.

be quiet! Straight Power 11 750W Power Supply Specifications

Let’s digest the specification of the 750W sample on test today and see what we’re dealing with:

be quiet! Straight Power 11 750W Power Supply Closer Look

Virtually all of be quiet!’s power supply range feature the same classic black frame with not too much pizazz raining all over the design. This isn’t a bad thing especially if the money you want to spend on a new power supply is spent primarily on the components and not non-essential features such as colour, RGB LEDs and virtually useless code words like digital, when in fact the unit isn’t digital like some manufacturers claim them to be.

be quiet! for the better part aim to provide high-quality products with a focus on sound, or lack of it as the Straight Power 11 features a single 135mm SilentWings 3 fan to aid in cooling the internal components. The Straight Power 11 also features a large funnel styled opening so the fan can draw an efficient and effective amount of air to assist in keeping the parts cool, which helps increase the longevity.

The label on the side is very handy if you’re looking to know what kind of amperage you can expect on the rails. The label tells us that a maximum of 150W can be placed on the 3.3V and 5V rails, whereas a total of 62.5A can be applied to the 12V line. Any more than this and you can expect cut-offs which be quiet! take seriously thanks to built-in overcurrent protection.

The Straight Power 11 range features a fully modular design and is supplied with all the cables required to fill the necessary inputs on the back. These include:

4 x SATA/PATA cables
3 x GPU power cables
2 x 4/8pin 12V CPU power cables
2 x 24pin ATX motherboard inputs (the big cable splits into 2 separate inputs)

The rear panel has an on and off power switch, a 100-240V ac 3 pin kettle lead power input and a honeycomb mesh panel for better airflow. Pretty standard stuff from be quiet!, not just from them but most power supply manufacturers. As I mentioned earlier, the OEM for the whole Straight Power 11 range is FSP which are a well known and reliable brand of PSU OEMs.

Overall the Straight Power 11 750W power supply looks good, it has a subtle but classic look to it and… it’s time we put it through our PSU testing routine which isn’t entirely as extensive as we would hope, but it’s enough to get a basic grasp on the quality.

be quiet! Straight Power 11 750W Performance

Since we don’t currently have access to an ATE load tester, a multimeter is used to show each of the power supplies performance on the 3.3v, 5v, and 12v rails. Although we can’t do full load tests, we can provide relative information regarding variance and fluctuation of current and ripple on the rails which is integral and indicative of quality in a power supply.

To perform the above tests, the components and methodology will be as follows:

Intel Core i7-7700K @ 5GHz/1.4V
ASUS Z270 Maximus IX APEX
ZOTAC GTX 1060 – Power limit set to the maximum
Crucial (2x8gb) 32GB DDR4 Ballistix Elite 3000MHz
2 x 525GB Crucial MX300 SSDs

Voltages will be monitored via a multi-meter and the AC power draw will be monitored via a power monitor when drawn from the wall. For the idle test, the system will be simply booted up and let to run into windows and after 5 minutes when the power draw has levelled out, the readings will be taken.

To load and apply power to the power supply, a combination of IBT and Furmark will be run to put as much strain on the power supply as possible. After 10 minutes the readings will be taken and to ensure maximum strain, the CPU will be overclocked to 4.8GHz. Depending on the power of the power supply, multiple graphics cards could be used in line with how comfortable I feel that the power supply will cope with such load. In the case of this unit, the GTX 1060 doesn’t support SLI. We will endeavour to improve our testing methods over 2018 though!

ATX themselves specify that a fluctuation and variable of 5% is acceptable so to number crunch it means that:

3.3V = 3.135V-3.465V is acceptable
5V = 4.75V-5.25V is acceptable
12V = 11.4V – 12.6V is acceptable.

Any readings outside of these figures will be an automatic fail.

The above figures are all well within the levels required by ATX, even at idle and at full load. The be quiet! Straight Power 11 750W sample on the test bench certainly seemed to run efficiently with our PSU testing system. One day we might even be able to make enough money to afford our own ATE ATX PSU tester, but until then, our method has wheedled out bad units in the past and we will continue to use this method going forward in the new era of Play3r without Gavbon at the helm.

be quiet! Straight Power 11 750W Power Supply Review: Our Verdict

What’s Hot:

• Solid and premium build quality
• A classic look combined with a subtle design makes this look sweet
• Plenty enough for a beefy system with single or dual graphics card systems
• Very reasonable Price
• 5-year warranty as standard
• Fully modular design

What’s Not:

• Sitting in a highly competitive segment on the market for the same wattage

The be quiet! Straight Power 11 750W power supply can be picked up for around £125 at Amazon UK and based on that price, it does offer reasonable value for money when compared to other brands 750W models. The Straight Power 11 range all feature the same 80PLUS Gold Efficiency rating as well as a solid 5-year manufacturers warranty which is pretty standard for a power supply of this price point.

The biggest benefit aside from the overall quality (which is very good by the way) is the stylish and clean look. It looks good and retains a premium and svelte look to it, without the garish overpowering marketing crud of RGB enabled this, and RGB enabled that. What the Straight Power 11 750W is, is a power supply targeted towards people wanting good quality and good acoustics at a good price, something be quiet! has been known to do for at least the last decade and beyond.

If you’re looking for a reliable power supply (FSP OEM) and don’t want to pay for ridiculous and ludicrous rainbow themed LEDs, then the be quiet! Straight Power 11 750W will power all but the most overkill of Intel X299 18 core 3-4 way GPU systems. This particular unit suits a single graphics card setup with room to add a second in the future comfortably and with a warranty of 5 years, it should last that and more! It has a fully modular design and offers a good mix of performance and style for a pretty good price.

Huge thanks to be quiet! for sending a sample of the Straight Power 11 750W power supply in for review.