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Living up to its name, be quiet! managed to deliver a super quiet power supply. Nonetheless, is this enough to meet the competition? A few years ago most brands didn't pay much attention to the term called "silent computing" but this has changed already, with Corsair and Seasonic being two key players in the PSU market that have in their portfolios PSUs that not even meet the corresponding be quiet! units, but in several cases also achieve even lower noise output.
The FSP platform that be quiet! used in the new Straight Power 11 Platinum line bears many changes compared to the previous, Gold-rated, platform. Nonetheless, these changes are not enough to make it competitive in the competitive 650W category, where models like the Corsair RM650x and the Seasonic Focus Plus Platinum with similar capacity reign the field. It is high time for be quiet! to start paying as much attention to performance as it does to noise output. Only by doing so, it will be able to match Corsair, which is its most significant opponent.
Another major problem for be quiet! products is that their prices are notably higher in the US market, compared to the European one. There are better products in the same price range as the Straight Power 11 Platinum 650W, with two of them being the Corsair and Seasonic offerings mentioned above.
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Disclaimer: Aris Mpitziopoulos is Tom's Hardware's PSU reviewer. He is also the Chief Testing Engineer of Cybenetics and developed the Cybenetics certification methodologies apart from his role on Tom's Hardware. Neither Tom's Hardware nor its parent company, Future PLC, are financially involved with Cybenetics. Aris does not perform the actual certifications for Cybenetics.
