Photos and Features
Before looking at the Straight Power 12 I did want to run through the Be Quiet! lineup a little more to give a better idea of where everything stands. The model names can be a little confusing so let's go over them. They have the Dark Power, Straight Power, and Pure Power product lines as their main enthusiast-focused ATX power supplies. They then have the System Power lineup and the SFX and TFX Power lineups for specialty sizes. All of these then have a number at the end, that number is a revision number with the Dark Power line on 13, the Straight Power now on 12 but with the 11 line still available as well. Pure Power is at 12 and System Power is at 10. The System Power and Pure lineups are both not modular and more budget-friendly with the System Power being completely entry-level. System Power has some 80 Plus Bronze-rated power supplies for its lower wattages and Gold rated for the 750 and 850 wattages. The Pure Power lineup are all Gold rated. The old Straight Power 11 line was also Gold rated but with the Straight Power 12 line they are now all Platinum rated which fits better in between the Pure Power and Dark Power lines. Then the Dark Power is the highest with a Titanium 80 Plus rating.
For styling be quiet!’s power supplies are blacked out just like all of their other products. I am surprised however that with their cases and now some of their fan models being available in white as well that we haven’t seen any white power supply models from them to match. The Straight Power 12 1000W has a black housing and on the fan side has a very unique fan grill design that uses straight bars rather than the same round metal grill that a lot of power supplies have or a design cut into the metal housing that functions as a grill. This design keeps you from sticking your fingers into the fan but also helps you see the fan better than on most power supplies as well. It is also a little retro. Behind it the cat cutout isn’t round, it has an octagon shape with each corner being rounded. The fan itself is one of the areas where be quiet can really stand out against the competition. Be quiet fans are known for being quiet and having a premium construction, most power supplies get cheaper OEM fans but the Straight Power 12 1000W has a custom 135mm Silent Wings fan, well they list it as 135 mm but like with a 120mm fan which is the opening not the blade size this fan was closer to 129/130 mm. It has a fluid dynamic bearing and is a 6-pole motor design. The fan can run at up to 2100 RPM and they have it listed at 7.7 db at 10% and 20% load, 8 at 50% load, and 28.9 at 100% load.
The flip side of the Straight Power 12 1000W gives us a better look at the slightly textured black powder-coated finish. Beyond that, there isn’t anything else going on here at all. A lot of times this is where the information would be located but be quiet hasn’t done that here.
The information sticker is on the side of the Straight Power 12 1000W. This has your serial number on it, a breakdown of the wattages by voltage, and the regulatory logos. On the other side, the Straight Power 12 1000W has the be quiet branding stamped into the housing, it is upside down in our pictures because it is upside down compared to the sticker side. It is set up to be readable when the fan is facing down. I would prefer that both sides of the Straight Power 12 1000W have the same clean side in case you need to flip the fan up but we don’t see that as much these days with case layouts. The Straight Power 12 1000W is an ATX power supply so the only dimension that can change from power supply to power supply is the total length the Straight Power 12 1000W is 160 mm long, 10 mm longer than it is wider which is relatively compact for a 1000 watt power supply.
The inside facing end of the Straight Power 12 1000W has a warranty void if opened sticker for countries that is applicable in and this is also where all of the modular cables hook up. Other than one double stacked plug, they are side by side and not stacked. All of the video card connections are on the far left with two 12-pin PCIe connections and one 600-watt PCIe 5.0 connection which is the new 12VHPWR connection which is more compact and can handle more wattage over a single cable than the older 6 and 8-pin connections. Next up they have the drive connections. These are one row 5-pin connections and have the clip on the side of the plug which keeps them more compact whereas everything else has the the clip in the center up top. Next to those are two 8-pin P8 power connections for the CPU power. Then the last two combine power the motherboard 24-pin power connection with one 8-pin plug and one 20-pin plug.
The outward-facing end of the Straight Power 12 1000W has 2/3 of the surface with small hexagon holes cut out of the housing. This is where all of the air from the fan on the inside will blow out. On the solid part of the housing they then have a C14 power plug and next to that a power switch.
The Straight Power 12 does have modular cables, as I already mentioned when we took a look at the connections on the power supply. For the cables be quiet doesn’t include a storage bag but they do ship the cables in two bundles using reusable Velcro straps that you can later use to store any extra cables. For the video card power cables, the Straight Power 12 1000W has three cables with it. You have one 25-inch long 12HPWR cable which is designed to handle 600 watts. That, like the other cables is sleeved with a black sleeving. The other two cables are PCIe power cables and be quiet uses a unique design for their PCIe cables. In total each cable has four of the 6+2 connections but what they do differently is they avoid the daisy chain design that you see a lot of power supplies using. Each of the connections has its own full-length cables that run back to the 12-pin plug at the power supply. This avoids the voltage dips that you sometimes see from the daisy chain design, looks cleaner, and doesn’t run as much power through the cables.
For CPU power the Straight Power 12 1000W has two EPS or 8-pin CPU power cables and one does have the split 4+4 design in case you need to use the Straight Power 12 on a motherboard with an older P4 connection. These were longer at 29 inches long. The Motherboard 24-pin power is shorter at 25 inches long and while it does have the split connections at the power supply they did sleeve it with the black sleeving as well.
Last up the Straight Power 12 1000W has three peripheral power cables. Two of those are only SATA power (the bottom two in the pictures below). One of those is 41 inches long with SATA power connections at 22,28,24, and 41 inches. The other SATA power cable is a little shorter with three SATA power connections at 23,28, and 34 inches. The third cable is my favorite, it has two SATA power connections at 22 and 27 inches on the cable, then two Molex connections at 33 and 39 inches. This is all you will need for most builds if you need any at all. These of course have black sleeving and the exposed wires are black as well and the connections are all black as well.
