be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 650 W Power Supply Review

Power Distribution

In Figure 21, you can see the power supply label containing all the power specs.

Figure 21: Power supply label

This power supply is advertised as having four +12 V rails, which is correct, since the monitoring integrated circuit has four +12 V over current protection (OCP) channels, and we clearly saw four current sensors (“shunts”) on the component side of the printed circuit board. See Figure 22. (Actually, there are six shunts, but RS243 is connected in parallel to RS244, and RS245 is connected in parallel to RS246, so the six shunts act as four.) Click here to understand more about this subject.

Figure 22: Shunts

The four +12 V rails are distributed as follows:

• +12V1 (RS240): The main motherboard cable and the peripheral and SATA connectors
• +12V2 (RS241): The ATX12V/EPS12V connector
• +12V3 (RS243/RS244): The first and second video card power connectors
• +12V4 (RS245/RS246): The third and fourth video card power connectors

This distribution is perfect. However, when using two connectors for video cards on the power supply (i.e., when you install two video cards that require two auxiliary power connectors each, since each connector has two cables), don’t install them side-by-side, or they will be connected to the same rail; skip one connector (i.e., use the first and the third connectors) to make each video card use a separate rail. Of course, if you configure the power supply to use a single-rail configuration, what we are saying won’t matter.

How much power can this unit really deliver? Let’s find out.