be quiet!, a division of Listan GmbH & Co. KG along with Xilence is a rather new face in the DIY enthusiast PC market. be quiet! began as an outgrowth of Listan's e-tail business in 2002. Since then, be quiet! has developed product lines covering cases, coolers, fans, and power supplies among other products. While not a major brand in North America, be quiet! has had some popularity across the pond (particularly in their native Germany) and their retail presence has started to grow even in North America. So, today, we are looking at the be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W which comes from be quiet! and FSP.

The be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W is just the second power supply we have ever seen from be quiet! and be quiet! is a brand that may not be that familiar to our North American readers. However, be quiet! has been a rather popular brand in Europe for some time now and has drawn a rather loyal following due to their products seeming to embody "silence". That said, our first outing with be quiet! was the Pure Power 10 600W and, while that unit had a lot of things that looked good about it to start off with, it ended up falling short in our metrics. To be completely fair, though, part of that might well have been the units market segment. So, today we are back with another be quiet! unit that seems to be slated for a much higher end portion of the market than the Pure Power 10 600W was. Given that, we both expect the Dark Power Pro 11 850W to be a better performer and we have higher expectations for it to start with. This is one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of moments it seems. However, before we move on, let's see what be quiet! has to say about this unit and see if our perceived market placement of this unit matches up with where be quiet!