be quiet! Power Zone 2 750w 80 PLUS Platinum ATX 3.1 PSU Review

TweakTown Rating: 99%

Our Verdict

be quiet!'s Power Zone 2 750W ATX 3.1 power supply is a high performance power plant for the money. If you are building a mid-range PC, this needs to be in your machine.

Pros

• 80 PLUS Platinum and Cybenetics Platinum ratings
• Pure Wings 3 140mm fan
• Angled 90 degree 12V-2x6 connector
• 10-year warranty
• FSP makes OEM design layout

Cons

• Uses two Elite capacitors

Should you buy it?

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Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

be quiet! sent over another one of their excellent products, the Power Zone 2 750w ATX 3.1 PSU. This 80 PLUS Platinum-rated PSU is priced at an attractive MSRP of $159.99; however, it can be had for around $130 at the time of this review. Having a 10-year warranty, be quiet! stands behind the Power Zone 2 PSUs in complete confidence, which is pretty typical of be quiet!

So, why don't we take a crack at what this Power Zone 2 750W ATX 3.1 PSU is all about? Let's go.

Packaging

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Upon examining the box for the Power Zone 2 ATX 3.1 PSU, it is the standard staple of be quiet!, a black box with simple branding on it.

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Flipping the box to the rear, we have a bit about be quiet!, not to mention all the electrical specifications of this Power Zone 2 PSU. Developed in Germany, the Power Zone 2 is PCIe 5.1 compatible and is 80 PLUS Platinum and Cybenetics Platinum rated.

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Opening up the packaging, we can see the Power Zone 2 PSU is packaged with care, with the cabling flanking each side.

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Again, the be quiet! Power Zone 2 PSU has been placed in bubble wrap to enhance its protection during transit.

Outside the be quiet! Power Zone 2 750w ATX 3.1 PSU

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Now looking at the cabling that comes with the Power Zone 2 PSU, which includes:

• ATX Motherboard (20+4-pin)
• P4 + P4 (CPU)
• P8 (CPU)
• P4 (CPU)
• 12V-2x6 90°
• PCI-e 6+2-pin (GPU) (3)
• PCI-e 6-pin (GPU)
• SATA (6)
• PATA

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By plucking the 12V-2x6 cable out from the rest of the wires, we can see that be quiet! has opted for a 90-degree angle on the GPU side of business. This allows for less stress on the connection itself and more clearance regarding the side tempered glass side panels on the chassis.

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Now, finally taking a look at the Power Zone 2 PSU itself, we have a lovely blackish gray aesthetic with a diamond pattern for the fan ventilation. The name "Power Zone 2" is also on the bottom of its placard.

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Taking another look at the side profile of the Power Zone 2 PSU, you can see "be quiet!" embossed in the side.

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The cable input side of the Power Zone 2 shows a pretty simple layout, with the 12V-2x6 600W connection on the far right.

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Now for the power specification sticker, which shows all the AC input and DC outputs in 3.3V, 5V, 12V, -12V, and 5VSB. The 12V rail, which is one big rail, has 62.5A available, which is helpful for those power-hungry GPUs, specifically up to an NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti or AMD's RX 9070 XT.

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The rear of the Power Zone 2 shows the C13 power input, a power rocker switch, and a diamond ventilation pattern we saw on the fan grill.

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Again, showing another picture of the embossed be quiet! branding on the side of the Power Zone 2.

Inside the be quiet! Power Zone 2 750w ATX 3.1 PSU

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Opening up the Power Zone 2 PSU, we are greeted with the 140mm Pure Wings 3 fan from be quiet! has chosen to use. Again, I love it when brands use their fans in PSUs; it shows that they are confident in what they produce. The Pure Wings 3 140mm fan is held in place on two brackets, one of which slides out of place when the top two screws are removed.

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Flipping the Pure Wings 3 140mm fan over to see the rear reveals the fan hub sticker with all the fan information. This fan, in particular, is running on 12V with 0.42A at 1800RPM.

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Moving the fan out of the way, we can now see a top-down view of the internals of the Power Zone 2 PSU. The OEM layout is from FSP, which is a known good brand for making quality PSUs.

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Here we can see the two Elite capacitors that are used here, rated for 270µF each at 420V up to 105 °C. These capacitors are made by Chinsan Electronic Industrial in Taiwan. These Elite capacitors are of decent quality, but they are a cost-saving measure.

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The main transformer, also brandishing a be quiet!. Branding is set off to the right-hand side and looks of decent quality.

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And lastly, we come to the 5V VRM stage, which has its daughterboard with two visible coils.

Installation, Testing, Finished Product, and Final Thoughts

Ryan's Test System Specifications

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Using the PSU test bench for this testing, the CPU, which is the Ryzen 9 7950X, was set to auto vcore to allow the CPU to boost as high as it thermally can. The 16-core, 32-threaded CPU maintained a 5.2 GHz boost clock during most of the test while running the AIDA64 Engineer System Stability Test. The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X's wattage ran up to a max of 188 watts according to HWINFO64, but averaged out to about 172 watts. The AM5 motherboard used here is a B650 AORUS Elite AX. The test RAM is a 32GB kit from Patriot, specifically the Viper Venom running at DDR5-5600M/T.

The test GPU, NVIDIA RTX 3090 FE, was power-limited at 30% via the NVIDIA App to control the GPU wattage. On average, the NVIDIA RTX 3090 FE drew about 105 watts with a maximum wattage of 115 watts. The power drawn from the wall was measured using a Killawatt P3 digital electrical usage monitor, which recorded a total system wattage of between 370 and 380 watts during the testing period, with an average usage of 375 watts.

Calculating efficiency, we found that the total system wattage was 375 watts, divided by the 425 watts of the PSU load average, resulting in 95% efficiency at a 50% PSU load. Wanna know something amazing? The fan never spun up once during testing. Simply amazing. Very nicely done, be quiet!.

All testing was completed using Aida64 Engineer's System Stability Test version v7.35.7000 for over 33 hours, with an ambient temperature of 20 ?C. Other monitoring software used was HWiNFO64 v8.16-5600, TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.67.0, and CPU-Z 2.16.0.x64.

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So in conclusion, be quiet's Power Zone 2 750w ATX 3.1 PSU is a banger of a PSU for the money. With FSP as the design layout and coupling it with the 140mm Pure Wings 3 fan, let's have the Power Zone 2 750W PSU live up to be quiet! standards. With its 80 PLUS Platinum rating, 10-year warranty, and competitive price point, this 750W PSU is a straightforward choice for your mid-tier machine build.