be quiet! Dark Power 13 850w ATX 3.0 80 Plus Titanium PSU Review

TweakTown's Rating: 96%

The Bottom Line

be quiet!'s Dark Power 13 850w is a top shelf 80 Plus Titanium rated ATX 3.0 PSU with a full 600w 12VHPWR connector. If you are after a rock solid ATX 3.0 PSU for your build, this is it.

Pros

• + 80 Plus Titanium rated
• + 100% 105C Japanese capacitors
• + 10-year warranty
• + All cables are sleeved

Cons

• - Spendy for an 850w PSU
• - CPU EPS cables are a bit short

Should you buy it?

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Buy at Amazon

Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

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be quiet!, a German company known for making quality and quiet cases, CPU coolers, fans, and power supplies, sent over one of their newest PSUs, the Dark Power 13, in the 850w flavor. This PSU, in particular, is made from a high-end FSP OEM design that offers 80 Plus Titanium efficiency, a PCIe 5.0 12VHPWR connection and is ATX 3.0 compliant.

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Like the specifications above, the Dark Power 850w also has an A ++ rating from the newcomer, Cybenetics. Pricing puts the be quiet! Dark Power 13 850w at $249.99, while the 750w model is $209.99, and a 1,000 model is also available for around $325.

be quiet! Dark Power 13 850W

	Today	Yesterday	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$199.90	$199.90	$199.90	$229.90	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 4/24/2024 at 2:46 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Packaging

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The rear of the packaging shows the nomenclature of the Dark Power 13 850w.

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Upon opening the packaging, we are greeted with a user manual and the box containing the cabling.

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I miss the bag that many manufacturers use instead of this box that be quiet! has chosen to use.

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All the cabling included with the Dark Power 13 850w is sleeved, which is a nice finishing touch.

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Kind of a staple with be quiet! PSUs are the PCI-mounted switch that allows the four 12V rails to be combined into one massive one for more stable overclocking. Also included are cable straps, zip ties, and various screws.

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The Dark Power 13 850w comes cradled between two pieces of form-fitted high-density foam. Now this is the way a high-end PSU should be packaged.

Outside the be quiet! Dark Power 13 850w ATX 3.0 PSU

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The Dark Power 13 850w retains the look of its predecessors with a matte black finish with shiny silver text. The dimensions of the Dark Power 13 850w are 175x150x86mm.

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The rear of the Dark Power 13 850w is very understated, with a single power rocker switch, an IEC-320-C13 cable input, and a larger honeycomb mesh for ventilation.

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The informational side of the Dark Power 13 850w shows four 12V rails at 35A each.

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Modularity is one of the best things regarding high-end PSUs these days. be quiet! has placed the "Drives" section with four plugs on the far left-hand side. The middle inputs are reserved for P8 and PCIe connections, except for the 600w 12VHPWR PCIe 5.0 connection.

The right-hand side is where the 24-pin motherboard connections are located. Under the long motherboard connection is an "OCK" jumper location, which effectively makes the four-railed PSU into a massive single 12V rail.

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The fan that be quiet! has chosen to use in the Dark Power 13 850w is one of their own, which happens to be a frameless 135mm Silent Wings 3 fluid dynamic bearing fan with a maximum speed of 1800 RPM while having a max dBa noise level of 19.8.

Inside the be quiet! Dark Power 13 850w ATX 3.0 PSU

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With the mesh shroud removed, a better view of the 135mm Silent Wings fan and two formed end pieces aid in directing airflow to the components below.

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This particular Silent Wings fan is a frameless version of be quiet!'s Silent Wings 3 fan in the 1800RPM flavor, sporting its own model number BQ SIW3-13525-HF. It would have been nice for this PSU to have the company's newest fan offering, the Silent Wings 4, which has a more aggressive design with potentially better cooling.

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The main overall view of the Dark Power 13 850w has a very clean and organized layout, with the daughterboard for external connections at the top, two 105C Japanese grade capacitors, and a few black heatsinks, along with one that's chromed-out on the bridge. Note the OEM is FSP.

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The front output daughterboard has very clean soldering and a clean design.

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be quiet! even managed to stamp their name on the top of the rectifier; interesting touch since opening up a PSU is not advised.

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Of the two Nippon Chemi-Con 105C Japanese capacitors mounted to the motherboard, the larger one is rated for 470 µF x 420V, while the smaller one is rated for 330 µF x 420V.

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And lastly, the Dark Power 13 850 is a bridgeless design, which is usually reserved for extremely high-end PSUs. Oh, and it's clean and quite shiny.

Ryan's Test System

• Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS PRO (INTEL Z690) - Buy from Amazon
• CPU: Intel Core i5 12600K - Buy from Amazon
• Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Halo Black - Buy from Amazon
• Memory: Patriot Viper Venom 32GB DDR5 5600 RGB - Buy from Amazon
• Graphics Card: NVIDIA RTX 3090 Founders Edition - Buy from Amazon
• Storage: Corsair MP600 PRO XT Gen4 PCIe x4 NVMe M.2 SSD - Buy from Amazon
• Case: Cooler Master TD500 Mesh V2
• Software: AIDA64 Engineer 6.32.5600, and CPU-z 1.94.0 x64
• Power Supply: be quiet! Dark Power 13 850w ATX 3.0 PSU
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 64-bit Build 22621 - Buy from Amazon
• Software: AIDA64 Engineer 6.8.6300, and CPU-z 2.03.0 x64

Testing & Final Thoughts

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When testing the Dark Power 13 850w, running an Intel Core i5 12600K and an NVIDIA RTX 3090 Founders Edition at full tilt will give us a load we can work with. Running a little over thirteen hours in Aida64 Engineer's System Stability test, the most wattage pulled from the wall was about 550 watts measured with a KillaWatt P3. Having a rating of 80 Plus Titanium means the Dark Power 13 850w has up to 95.6% efficiency at a 50% load.

Looking at the numbers, the Intel Core i5 12600K was able to draw around 111 watts at full load. The NVIDIA RTX 3090 FE, slurped about 375 watts, was going at full blast but not fully saturating the 600w 12VHPWR connection. Those two, in total, give us approximately 486 watts. Now add some additional wattage for fans, motherboard, an SSD, and other system components, which would put us somewhere in the neighborhood of 525 watts.

When I say that be quiet! was spot on with their certifications, that would be a massive understatement, and the Dark Power 13 850w is undoubtedly no exception. Amazingly, the Dark Power 13 850w was 95.5% efficient under our testing - very impressive. Fan noise also was non-existent, which was expected with the Silent Wings 3 fan that was inside.

Regardless of your system, you can't go wrong with the Dark Power 13 850w ATX 3.0 PSU. I only have two complaints - the price and the cabling. The Dark Power 13 850w currently sits at $249.99, so if you want the best rating in an 850w PSU, which is titanium, this is it. There isn't anything else on the market that is ATX 3.0 and rated at 80 Plus Titanium.

My other issue is the EPS CPU cables, which I found short. Nothing major, but it caused me to route those cables in a less organized way.

So in closing, be quiet!'s Dark Power 13 850w is a rock-solid ATX 3.0 PSU with a full 600w 12VHPWR connector. Everything about the Dark Power 13 850w feels premium, well-tested, and robust. Computer enthusiasts worldwide agree that without a solid PSU, your system is nothing. Think of a PSU like your heart. You want it as strong as possible. You would want that for your PC, right?

Provide enough juice to each component so that each can perform as best as it can. That's what a solid PSU can do, and the Dark Power 13 850w can handle the job, but it could put a dent in your wallet at the same time.