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be quiet! Pure Power 9 600W PSU Review

be quiet! released the updated Pure Power 9 series that consists of four semi-modular models with capacities ranging from 400W to 700W. Today, we're looking at the 600W implementation to see where it stands in the competitive mainstream market.

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Packaging, Contents, Exterior And Cabling

Packaging

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On the front of the small box is a picture of the PSU with its modular panel exposed; the native cables are meticulously hidden in the background, proving that they are indeed stealth thanks to their darkened wires. The 80 PLUS Silver icon is near the top-left corner. Around back, be quiet! provides some interesting info including a diagram that shows the available connectors and cable lengths. You'll also find the unit's dimensions and power specifications. Two paragraphs provide some details about be quiet! in English and German. Right next to those paragraphs, a short list shows the product's interesting features, the most important being that its conception, design and quality control were performed in Germany.

Contents

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The box's contents are protected by a cardboard sheet, and the PSU is stored in bubble wrap. We would prefer to see packing foam instead. be quiet! obviously wanted to keep the packaging compact and foam wouldn't allow this.

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The bundle includes several zip-ties, a set of fixing bolts, the user's manual (common to all Pure Power 9 models) and the necessary cables.

Exterior

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We like the high-quality finish, and an orange accent around the fan and its specially-designed blades looks interesting.

Up front, the exhaust grille doesn't cover the entire side, and a power switch is installed next to the AC receptacle.

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be quiet!'s logo is stamped onto one of the sides. The other side hosts a power specifications label.

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Around back, the modular board only includes five sockets. Three of them are for peripheral cables, while the remaining two are for PCIe cables featuring two connectors each. Sleeving on the native cables goes all the way back into the chassis, and as you can see from our photos, there is a plastic grommet in the exit hole to protect the wires.

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This PSU's dimensions are compact, so you won't have a problem fitting the L9-CM-600 into a smaller chassis.

Cabling

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Thankfully, only the absolutely necessary cables are fixed (specifically the ATX and EPS ones) and they're sleeved, while the modular cables are flat. Finally, all cables are stealth, so if you use a chassis with a black painted interior, it will be easy to hide them.

Aris Mpitziopoulos
Aris Mpitziopoulos
Aris Mpitziopoulos is a Contributing Editor at Tom's Hardware US, covering PSUs.
14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • turkey3_scratch
    Really poor unit. For one thing, the crossload performance is poor. Sleeve bearing fan with less reliability. 85C primary capacitor. Once again, another failed 3.3V transient response. Very high inrush current. Also, near worst of all, 140+mv of ripple on the 12V rail in CL2. Just really bad. And CL2 is a realistic scenario these days because those 3.3V and 5V rails don't do much anyway. FSP's soldering is clearly not the same as the nice soldering on their high end units.

    But my largest complaint would have to be voltage regulation (line regulation) under different load scenarios on page 6.
    Reply
  • 4745454b
    85C main cap doesn't bother me that much. It should get airflow from the fan so unless the fan dies (and if it does 105C cap isn't going to help much.) or it gets clogged with dust you should be ok. As for the CL test what do you expect? It's a group regulated design so that's going to happen. It's like buying a super duty truck and then complaining you don't get 30MPG in town. What I find more bothersome is they can't seem to sell you what they claim on the box. If it's not C6 or C7 ready and not a group reg design, why claim so? I wonder if they shipped the wrong unit?
    Reply
  • powernod
    Outstanding review by Aris as always! :)
    If only the PSU itself was outstanding as well:ouch:
    Reply
  • basroil
    Looks like FSP is still mostly a second tier manufacture with those transient response and inrush... does it really hurt that much to put a shuntable thermistor like Seasonic and SuperFlower units have?

    For less than $10 more you can usually find excellent Seasonic and SuperFlower Leadex Gold units, which makes it really hard to say this PSU is anything more than "meh"
    Reply
  • Aris_Mp
    actually I am worried about the bulk cap, because 85C means that it has 4x times lower lifetime than a 105C cap.
    Reply
  • turkey3_scratch
    17839248 said:
    85C main cap doesn't bother me that much. It should get airflow from the fan so unless the fan dies (and if it does 105C cap isn't going to help much.) or it gets clogged with dust you should be ok. As for the CL test what do you expect? It's a group regulated design so that's going to happen. It's like buying a super duty truck and then complaining you don't get 30MPG in town. What I find more bothersome is they can't seem to sell you what they claim on the box. If it's not C6 or C7 ready and not a group reg design, why claim so? I wonder if they shipped the wrong unit?

    Not all group regulated designs are exactly the same way. We see in Seasonic's S12ii series a group regulated design that actually crossloads very well. This seems to be one of the worst on the ladder.

    @Aris: Why is Inactive PWR_OK to DC_LOSS better at a higher value? Once the PWR_OK signal is dropped, wouldn't you want the unit to shut down as quickly as possible, not prolong it?
    Reply
  • powernod
    It was already explained by Aris at his review:
    "The power-good signal lasts longer, so when it drops, the voltage level of the +12V rail is already below 11V."
    When the pwr_ok to DC_loss is higher (*meaning that it has a positive , not negative value) that means that the motherboard will already have been shut-down. (*from what i've understand, at least)
    Reply
  • turkey3_scratch
    Not sure how the motherboard could shut down before the PWR_OK signal is dropped.
    Reply
  • Aris_Mp
    the problem is that in some PSUs, PWR_OK, which informs the mainboard when it should shut down, drops after and not before the rails go our of spec. So once it drops the rails are already too low.

    Normally when AC is removed, the PWR_OK signal should be de-asserted at least 1ms before voltages go out of spec in order not to stress the VRMs of the mainboard and of other components (e.g. VGA, HDD, SSD, etc.).

    The only way to address this issue is to have a circuit on the mainboard checking the input voltages and give the shut down order when these go out of spec. In other words to completely bypass the power_ok signal coming from the PSU. But this will cost money and after all a PSU oughts to follow ATX spec's guidelines.
    Reply
  • turkey3_scratch
    So is "DC_LOSS" considered "voltages out of spec"? I mean, there can still be DC even if voltages are out of spec. It won't be a loss of DC< just an out-of-spec voltage relative to the DC.
    Reply