be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850W PSU Review

Epilogue

The be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 achieves good enough performance and features a silent operation, while its price won’t make you want to scream. Usually, the products of this brand are expensive in the US market, but the Pure Power 12 M 850 is sold at $135, which is in line with competing offerings. That said, it doesn’t use the same quality filtering caps, and with ten dollars more, you can get the Thermaltake GF3 model with similar capacity, which uses Japanese caps everywhere. You will lose a bit in the noise output section but get higher-quality caps. In any case, both products’ provided warranty is ten years long.

I am not so fond of the Teapo SC caps that the Pure Power 12 M 850 primarily uses on its secondary side. Although they might be able to live the extended warranty, even under not optimal conditions, the fact is that most users (and reviewers) are educated that Japanese caps are way better and preferred for increased reliability. I cannot perform an extended torture test, having several PSUs running for years under load, to determine whether lower-spec caps can also run for prolonged periods. However, I can safely tell you this: even if some lower-end caps survive for long, a higher quality cap will still age later, meaning it will keep its performance at the same high levels for a way larger period than a lower-spec cap. So we should not only see whether a cap will outlive the provided warranty but also check the performance loss due to the cap’s aging. As expected, quality caps will age much slower, so the performance impact will be lower. Is this enough to pay more? This depends on your wallet and what you want to use the PSU for. I prefer to pay more and get higher quality parts, especially caps, in my PSU rather than cheap out and lose performance in the long run.

The main competitor for the be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 is the Corsair RM850e, which also uses a platform provided by HEC. The platforms are different, which explains why the RM850e Gen5 has notably lower overall performance than the German unit. Moreover, the last has a more extended warranty. Still, at $135, the Pure Power 12 M 850 is close to some of the high-end offerings in this category, so be quiet! should try to lower its price to around $120 to make it more competitive. In general, the be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 is a good PSU worthy of your attention.

To check all alternative PSU offerings, read my Best ATX v3.0 PSUs article before investing in a new power supply. You help me a lot by using my affiliate links, which don’t increase the product’s price. I get a commission from Amazon every time you do it, which can make a difference for me, especially now that I am on my own, working exclusively for my media and not for someone else.