be quiet Dark Power Pro 14 IO 1600W Power Supply Review

The Dark Power Pro is a long-standing line of PSUs designed for the high-end PC market.  While this normally excludes every day budget-oriented system builders and gamers from buying one, there is a point of diminishing returns if you don’t plan to take advantage of the special features.

Before we jump into the review, I wanted to point out that the packaging for the Dark Power Pro 14 is quite amazing.  Not only is the box HUGE but the packaging is extremely well built.

Inside you will find the main power supply on the left wrapped in a nice felt while the larger box on the right contains the cable bundle, accessories and excellent user manual.

Unlike most power supplies that are constructed from a stamped steel chassis the Dark Power Pro 14 features a brushed aluminum frame that has been anodized black.  As such, many of the common stamped features are absent and replaced by elegant vertical bars and carefully machined angled corners.

Under the aluminum panels you’ll find metal mesh, likely to prevent grasshoppers from feasting on the premium quality Japanese capacitors rated at 105c for maximum reliability and longevity.

You’ll also find the massively sturdy power switch followed by the high amperage power socket which almost looks like a sleeping Ghast from Minecraft.

A metal mesh can be found on the bottom of the PSU covering the entire panel and cooling fan.  This fan is a frameless design with a silent wings 4 blade profile.  Technically, the fan still has a frame but has been readjusted to allow for a much larger fan and custom mounting specific for the Dark Power Pro case.

The Dark Power Pro 14 features a fully modular cable design allowing you to use only the cables you need for your system.  Unlike other modular PSUs you’ll find a different power plug for each cable type.  Along the left you will find size plugs dedicated to drives and accessories.  To the right you’ll find motherboard specific power connections for the main 24pin power plug and two 8-pin CPU plugs.  A total of three PCI Express specific power connections are available followed by two dedicated PCI Express 5.1 600w 12VHPWR power connections.

The Dark Power Pro IO has a new feature in place of the “OCK” (Overclocking Key) port which is a simple, run of the mill, totally boring yet EU demanded USB Type-C.  This new connection is your window into everything Dark Power Pro when using the IO Center software.  The primary reason is to replace the physical multi rail to single rail “switch” with a purely digital implementation while also controlling fan settings and power usage.

For years, overclockers would prefer the single rail option as it will deliver more stable power under extreme loads and it seems now oveclockers and hardware enthusiasts can sip on the delicious single rail power while controlling fan noise and monitoring power usage while they overclock their dual RTX 5090 on LN2 in hopes of landing that elusive “Overclocking on a budget” badge from HWBot.

Honestly, I still like the old way with a simple switch, not only do you look cool flicking the OC controls to active but, you don’t have to worry about stray services running in the background stealing precious FPSs