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Final Analysis
The Pure Power 10 line consists of four members that demonstrate dramatically improved performance compared to their predecessors. With the addition of VRMs and independent voltage regulation on the secondary side, along with an NTC thermistor on the primary side, the new Pure Power units achieve good performance under highly unbalanced loads across the +12V and 5V rails, plus low inrush currents. This means that two of the major problems suffered by be quiet!'s Pure Power 9 family were solved.
Other specifications remain unchanged, though, and be quiet! really should continue improving in order to make its Pure Power portfolio even better.
For starters, it could redesign the power distribution to avoid putting the EPS and PCIe cables on a shared rail. Moreover, the power-good signal still isn't accurate. This is a great shame since the hold-up time is quite high, reaching 23.3ms. The ATX spec only requires a 17ms hold-up time. FSP apparently didn't bother to tune this unit's power-good signal, though. We found the same issue with be quiet!'s Pure Power 10 500W during testing. This isn't a hard procedure, and be quiet! must take some responsibility since it didn't force FSP to rectify the problem. In PSUs with a lower than 17ms hold-up time, an inaccurate power-good signal is usually a trick for fooling reviewers. But in a PSU with a longer than required hold-up time, an inaccurate signal is just an oversight.
It's nice to see that the new and improved FSP platform uses an NTC thermistor, which drastically reduces inrush currents during the PSU's start-up phase. Hopefully in the next revision of this platform, FSP will add a bypass relay as well. Besides a small efficiency boost, it'd also allow the thermistor to cool down quickly and be ready to act even under a hot-start where the bulk cap is empty of charge. Another pair of improvements we'd like to see are a bulk cap rated for higher temperatures and better-quality filtering caps on the secondary side. In a PSU that costs close to $100 (at the time of the review), it's disappointing to find a 85°C bulk cap and Teapo SC capacitors.
Given that you can find top-notch PSUs with similar capacity for $100 (for instance, Corsair's RM550x and EVGA's 550 G3), we find it difficult for the Pure Power 10 600W to succeed without a major price adjustment. With a price close to or better than $80, this unit would be much more compelling. Moreover, the provided three-year warranty looks really low in this price range and it should be expanded to five years. Of course, those low-quality Teapo SC caps set the limit here. The new Pure Power 10 units represent a good effort, but be quiet! needs to try a lot harder if it wants to infiltrate the U.S. market where competition is ruthless.
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