A brilliant combination of price, flexibility, quietness and efficiency
Written By
Published on 8 February 2013
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best buy
1 / 2
Our rating
Reviewed price £63 inc VAT
If you’re looking for a high-quality power supply with a lot of features for not a lot of money, the Be Quiet! Pure Power L8 530W could be the model for you.
Although it’s one of the cheapest power supplies that we’ve reviewed recently, it has a modular design, with the only captive cables the required ones for the 24-pin motherboard and 8-pin CPU connectors.
This means that you’re free to choose the number of SATA (five connectors max) and Molex cables (four connectors max) you want to connect, to match the number of drives you’ve got installed. This means less clutter inside your case and tidier build.
This power supply has just two 6+2 pin PCI Express power connectors, which will limit you to a single graphics card, but the 530W rating will mean that you can still install a high-end CPU and graphics card with no problems.
In our efficiency tests, the Be Quiet! Pure Power L8 530W beat its 80 Plus Bronze specification by at least 1 per cent in all loads, managing 83.69 per cent at 100 per cent load, 86.28 per cent at 50 per cent load and 84.59 per cent at 20 per cent load. That’s excellent efficiency for this price.
On top of that, the 120mm SilentWings-branded fan proved to be very quiet, if not entirely silent, at all loads. With very little coil noise, either, this is a great supply to keep your PC quiet. Overall, the combination of price, flexibility, efficiency and noise mean that this supply wins a Best Buy award.
Written by
David Ludlow
David has been fascinated by technology since he first set eyes on the ZX Spectrum 48K. A fan of smartphones, tablets and home automation, he also specialises in home networking. David has worked in tech publishing for more than 20years, working on PCW, Computer Shopper and launching Expert Reviews in 2010.
