Introduction

We would like to thank Be Quiet! for supplying the review sample.

Be Quiet! is a German brand, part of Listan, that specializes in products that operate with minimal noise output. Till recently their products were mostly known inside Germany but they decided to expand to a wider market. Unfortunately at the time of the review they did not have a presence in the U.S. Their PSU products, from high-end to low-end, spans over the Dark Power Pro, Straight Power and Pure Power series. They have also several SFX, TFX and notebook PSUs.

In this review we test the Straight Power E8 400W. This unit features an ultra silent, low RPM fan that utilizes the SilentWing technology so the manufacturer claims that the max noise output is only 14.7 dBA at full load operation! The unit uses a non-modular cabling scheme and although its price is on the low side it features DC-DC converters for the minor rails generation, something that gives a boost to efficiency. The E8 may be only 80 Plus Bronze certified but its characteristics speak for up to 89% efficiency, a very high ratio.

Specifications

According to Be Quiet! the fan outputs only 14.7dBA at max RPM, this is a very bold claim indeed even though the fan's max speed is restricted to 910 RPM. Also all protections are incorporated in this unit something that is very good, of course, for the end user. The max operating temperature is only 40°C but we will ignore this and test it at near 50°C. If it fails then we will lower the ambient inside the hot box.


Regardless its limited capacity of 400 W, the unit has three +12V rails rated at 18A each. In our opinion, three rails in a such a low capacity unit are a bit much. Two would be more preferable.

Cables & Connectors, Power Distribution

Strangely enough the unit is equipped with an 8 pin EPS12V connector and one 4 pin ATX12V. A 4+4 pin connector would do the job just fine so the 4 pin one could be replaced by an additional 6 pin PCIe. Also the choice of a single 6+2 PCIe connector is quite weird. Two 6 pin connectors would improve usability of the PSU quite a bit - there are no graphics cards that have a single 8-pin power input. Regarding the other cables, the PSU is equipped with two quite long cables that incorporate all SATA/Peripheral connectors on them.
Cable length is adequate and the distance between the connectors is sufficient. Finally all connectors use 18 AWG wires.


Power distribution is good since the EPS & ATX12V connectors do not share the same rail with PCIe. Also the 20+4 pin ATX connector, along with all SATA/Peripheral conectors uses a dedicated rail.