Undecisive between be quiet! Power Zone 650W and Corsair RM650

Hey there,

to make some sense to my situation, I give you my current build:

  • Intel i5-4670 with a Spire TME III cooler
  • Gigabyte Z87-D3HP
  • 2x G.Skill Ares 8GB DDR3-1866 totalling 16GB RAM
  • Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 Windforce X3 OC, 2GB
  • Samsung 840 Evo 120GB
  • 2x AeroCool Lightning Red 200mm fan (Front/Side)
  • 1x Bitfenix Spectre 200mm (Top)
  • 2x Corsair AF120 (Bottom/Rear)
  • Controlled by a Bitfenix Recon
  • Powered by a Cooler Master G600
  • All sitting comfortably in an AeroCool Mechatron

I have no up to date pics of it, but here it is still rocking the stock cooler:

And here a slightly newer pic with the new cooler:

I have been rocking this PC for almost 1.5 years now and it served me well so far.

But, some time ago when I turned off all my case fans, I noticed that the noise didn't change a single bit. So I looked into that and I'm certain that it's the power supply that makes that noise since the CPU cooler sounds different and the tripple fan cooling on my 770 have an entirely different frequency when I crank those up. The only fan that's left is the PSU fan.

Now, I didn't build this PC to be quiet! (pun intended), but seeing (well hearing in this case, no pun intended) that the PSU fan is louder than all the other fans combined made me crave for a near silent power supply.

So I looked around a bit on my favourite price comparison site and I have lain my eyes upon two units:

  • be quiet! Power Zone 650W
  • Corsair RM650

They are basically head to head for me.

The be quiet! has these points going for it:

  • Made in Germany (I'm german so supporting local companies is a concern)
  • Lower ripple
  • Would fit better in my system (looks)
  • Cheaper

Whereas Corsair:

  • Better voltage regulation
  • Higher efficiency
  • Better cables
  • Semi-passive cooling

I'm leaning towards Corsair since I really like the cables, the higher efficiency and the semi-passive cooling, but the be quiet! looks better, is cheaper and is made in Germany.

Which one would you choose? Or would you choose an entirely different unit? (Price shouldn't surpass 120€)

Thanks in advance and best regards,

Pp

If it were me I would go for the Corsair; the reasons you mentioned for be quiet! weren't performance based. If it is available where you are Seasonic has great PSUs and I've had one for two years and it runs perfect

Thanks for your input.
I've looked at some Seasonic ones, but they are either just not what I'm looking for or too expensive.

Look at some reviews of the Corsair RM series. I'm sure that'll be enough to sway you away from getting one.

I was about to get one of those, but went with a Seasonic SS-850KM3 instead. Corsair use cheap caps, mixed with good caps, in the RMs. Plenty of people have complained about theirs dying.

I've read both jonny guru's and kitguru's review of it and didn't think that'd be much of an issue since the most important circuits have high quality caps. It does have substantially more ripple compared to the be quiet!, though.
They both have their strengths and drawbacks, that's why I'm so torn.

The Seasonic X-650 does look promising (it even has 7 years warranty), but it's too expensive. It costs 135€+ here and I was looking around 100€ with 120€ being the absolute limit.
The prices for that unit did go up in the last month, so maybe I'll wait for it to get cheaper again.
Thank you very much.

I have a Corsair VS550 in my rig and have no problems. How much better are Corsair's features? If they are minimal I would pick the Be quiet! due to its perks.

I am sworn off corsair alltoghther after a bad experience with another product. One of their top ifnthe line keyboards. LEDs started to burn out after only 4 months and the customer support was the worst I have ever experienced. Then they refunded me for less that what i paid and completely wrote off the not so cheap shipping costs I had to cover to get NOTHING back.

Even if the Corsair unit is better I would avoid it for fear of it ever going wrong and having to deal with their customer support. I am also in Europe and their returns base is in Sweden or Norway, I forget, but the shipping to send it back was over €50 which I never saw again and they never even confirmed they received it until I asked. 4 weeks of zero response without having to poke them and no eta on a replacement while they were rolling out the RGBs en mas. Yeah they are not good people.

Support local go Be Quiet!

Edit spelling and additional detail.

Well, the ribbon-cables, semi-passive cooling and higher efficiency are pretty big points for Corsair.

Yeah, I've heard a lot of bad stuff about Corsair recently which is another reason why I'm so torn. But I think I can rule the Corsair unit out now.
I've read Jonnyguru's and Kitguru's review of the Seasonic X-650 KM3 and it has all the features that I like about the Corsair unit plus less ripple, better looks and even higher efficiency which makes the be quiet! seem pretty pale with only 2 points (local company/price) going for it. So if the price drops in the next few weeks I think I'm going for the Seasonic because of its superiority even though it does blow my budget a bit.

I am pretty happy with my RM650, but it hasn't blown me away. I don't know if it's just me, but all cable connectors where extremely tight and did get me slightly annoyed. My Psu is deffenetly silent under heavy load, but I am not sure if I would go for a psu with the zero rpm at low load another time as you get a quite a bit of unessersary heat in your case, which could have been easily ventilated away without significant noice.

I have the AX1200i in mine and I love it. Alot of people have had bad experiences with their customer support but when I had a switch die in my K70 after 2 weeks I had nothing but a great experience getting it replaced. even though you may have already decided I would go with the corsair. just my .02

Thanks for your input. I'm not worried about extra heat in my case, I have plenty of air moving through it. And the Seasonic I mentioned above even has a switch which turns the semi-passive cooling on/off.

Yeah, some have really great and some have really bad experiences... My own experience with Corsair is neither great nor bad.

Good call. My little brothers PC has a Seasonic PSU in it and it is just solid.

What about evga g650. At least 750 got great review. And cables look brilliant too. Not that expensive either.

Do you mean the SuperNOVA 650 G1? Can't find anything about a G650. And I also can't find any indepth review for the SuperNOVA.

The G2 series(and P2/T2) from EVGA are really good as well. Seasonic is also great, but as you said, expensive.

I don't like the RM650 due to cheap build and not as great performance.

I'd love to have some good indepth reviews on the 650 G1 (there isn't a G2 version of it). I don't want to buy a unit without some good solid data on VR, ripple and noise again.

I think the G1 is the same model as the Supernova NEX. I stay away from the Supernova NEX lineup though(the one with 4 +12v rails), as it's not a great performer.

Also, since you seem to actually know what to look for in a power supply, I'll link you this page. I found it not too long ago and it's amazing.

http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page2293.htm

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Well, I guess that rules the EVGA one out.

Holy crap, that site is awesome! Thank you very much!