Antec TruePower Quattro 1200W

Although many users are currently looking for smaller power supplies below 500W, there still is a demand for stronger ones, particularly if you are a gamer with Triple-SLI or Quad-Crossfire systems. Those planning on running NVIDIA's next generation "Fermi" will want a fairly beefy PSU, and the same goes for Folding@Home farms where you'd want a lot of stable power. For the upper end PSUs there are a wide range of models, which doesn’t make the purchase decision easy. In addition, these power supplies are usually expensive so you'll want to get the best features and a reliable power supply that can operate even under maximum load and summer temperatures.

We received a TruePower Quattro 1200W from Antec and as usually we're looking to see if it provides a good overall package. We'll check out the safety features, voltage stability, and the available connectors. Efficiency is also an important issue and affects the energy consumption as well as the internal temperature. We also got a special OC version from Antec. It has two big regulators for the internal fan and +12V voltages. You can easily adjust the rail when the voltage drops down too much. In all other areas the OC version has the same features as the standard model.

The TruePower Quattro 1200W is a PSU that polarizes because of its 80mm fan. Usually a bigger fan also has a bigger cooling area, but lot of it depends on the fan-quality and cooling topology. With a 120-140mm fan mounted on the bottom, you have a curve in the airflow, but with 80mm the airflow is more direct. So temperatures should not be a problem. But will the fan be silent enough for most discerning buyers? Let’s find out!

Package Contents

The product is well packed and includes four screws, the modular connector cables, a short information sheet as well as a power cord.

Six well dimensioned +12V rails with 38A each can deliver the full power of the PSU. Again, we can see a manufacturer using a DC-DC converter. +5V has 30A and +3.3V offers 25A. Together they can handle 170W. The massive standby rail is rated at 6A.

External Impressions, Cables and Connectors

Usually, Antec power supplies have a simple looking case and color, but here we have two big red stripes ending with “1200”. Because of the wide area of rounded ventilation holes there is only room for a small connector panel. They use a lot of fixed cables, but that's not inherently bad as most users of a 1200W PSU will need most of them. There is no power switch, a typical but debatable practice from Enhance Electronics, the manufacturer of this unit.

Here you can see the OC-version with only slight differences overall, but good visible regulators.

Cables and Connectors
Fixed	Main	24-pin 65cm
	ATX12V/PS12V	4+4-pin
	PCIe	2x 6/8-pin 50cm + 6-pin 15cm
	Peripheral	PATA 50cm + PATA 15cm + PATA 15cm + Floppy 15cm
		SATA 50cm + SATA 15cm + SATA 15cm
Modular	PCIe	2x 6/8-pin 50cm + 6-pin 15cm
	Peripheral	PATA 50cm + PATA 15cm + PATA 15cm + Floppy 15cm
		PATA 50cm + PATA 15cm + PATA 15cm
		2x SATA 50cm + SATA 15cm + SATA 15cm
		SATA 50cm + SATA 15cm

The main connector of the TruePower Quattro is 65cm long. In addition you will get a 4+4-pin ATX12V and 8-pin EPS12V connector (both 65cm) as well as many cables for peripheral components. There are eleven SATA and nine PATA plugs. You also get two floppy connectors and more than enough PCIe plugs for your graphic cards. Another interesting feature is the Nippon Chemi-Con capacitor for all PCIe cables, called PowerCache. As Antec tells us, they are nice for critical moments like fast load changes, because they prevent short voltage drops. Of course, they will also help to reduce ripple and noise.

Interior and Topology

The internal structure of the ATX 2.3 PSU is dominated by two very big heatsinks. This is one reason the 80mm fan can be as silent as other PSUs with 120mm or larger fans. You just need the right topology and an efficient design. However, the heatsink on the secondary circuit is much smaller, as there are many components for filtering and regulation. The main capacitors are from Nippon Chemi-Con as well as on the secondary side with some additional all-solid caps from Sanyo on the VRMs.

Antec is using a well equipped EMI-filter with nice isolated x-capacitors and two PFC-chokes in this interleaved design. We can see two Infineon transistors for switching. They are absolutely famous these days because of their good transmission characteristics. Of course, there are interference-suppression chokes on each rail and a MOV behind the entrance. The safety-distance between the galvanic isolated circuits is more than enough.

Because of the numerous cables and big heatsink there is not much space on the secondary side. We will see if this presents a thermal problem under high load. Most of the wires have shrink tubing. The Silicon Touch IC offers SCP, OVP, UVP and OCP.

Voltage Regulation

+3.3V regulation
Load	Voltage
10%	3.33V (+0.91%)
20%	3.30V (+0%)
50%	3.27V (-0.91%)
80%	3.25V (-1.51%)
100%	3.21V (-2.73%)
110%	3.18V (-3.64%)

+3.3V is often the weakest rail with ATX-spec loads. A modern system doesn’t need many amps from this rail, but a power supply shouldn’t have problems reaching the advertised performance. In that sense, –3.64% is not the best result, but still it's still not a problem. This rail is very stable from 10-50%, after which the drop becomes larger. The load was 1.58A at 10% and 17.36A at 110%, but modern systems aren't likely to exceed ~50% load on this rail.

+5V regulation
Load	Voltage
10%	5.00V (+0%)
20%	4.99V (-0.2%)
50%	4.97V (-0.6%)
80%	4.94V (-1.2%)
100%	4.92V (-1.6%)
110%	4.90V (-2%)

+5V starts at an optimal level with 5.00V. Usually we like this result to start higher, because there is often a large voltage drop under higher loads. There's not much room for a drop, but as you can see, it is still very stable. Even at 10% overload (-2%) all measurements are within the ATX specifications. The load was 1.89A on 10% and 20.83A on 110%.

+12V regulation
Load	Voltage (best)	Voltage (weakest)
10%	12.17V (+1.42%)	12.13V (+1.08%)
20%	12.21V (+1.75%)	12.15V (+1.25%)
50%	12.18V (+1.5%)	12.12V (+1%)
80%	12.12V (+1%)	12.07V (+0.58%)
100%	12.07V (+0.58%)	12.03V (+0.25%)
110%	12.04V (+0.33%)	12.00V (+0%)

+12V shows an untypical regulation and increases at 20% load with up to 12.21V. However, the voltage is always over 12.00V. +12V5 was always the weakest rail here but still better than most of the results we have measured in previous tests. The load was 8.65A on 10% and 94.95A on 110% (for all rails combined). By the way +12V has an OCP of 50A at all +12V rails, which is quite high.

With the OC version you can adjust the rail up to 12.6V, for those setups where one cable has to transfer very high currents with their accompanying high voltage drops. Most users will have no need of this feature, as the internal regulation is very good.

+5VSB regulation
Load	Voltage
10%	5.10V (+2%)
20%	5.09V (+1.8%)
50%	5.05V (+1%)
80%	5.01V (+0.2%)
100%	4.97V (-0.6%)
110%	4.95V (-1%)

The well dimensioned +5V Standby rail starts higher than the other +5V rail. The load was 0.29A on 10% and 3.17A on 110%.

Efficiency and PFC

230VAC, 50Hz
Load	Efficiency	PFC
10%	79.21%	0.885
20%	87.98%	0.975
50%	90.67%	0.989
80%	89.99%	0.989
100%	88.62%	0.995
110%	87.70%	0.995

 

120VAC, 60Hz
Load	Efficiency	PFC
10%	78.17%	0.981
20%	85.19%	0.990
50%	88.67%	0.996
80%	87.06%	0.996
100%	85.15%	0.997
110%	84.04%	0.999

The Antec 1200W efficiency is not outstanding, but it's still very high and reaches 91% at 50% and 230VAC. With 115VAC the maximum efficiency is 89%, more than acceptable for practical use. Another interesting fact is that the TruePower nearly attained 80% at low load. With 83% the Seasonic X-Series was a little bit better here, but 80% is still a positive and unusual result for 10%. On one hand they can’t establish a record here. On the other hand, PFC was often over 0.975, even at 230VAC. And 0.999 is an impressive result as well. With 90VAC Antec reached up to 87.14% efficiency at 50% load.

Ripple and Noise

Up next we want to show you some ripple and noise results for each important rail and load. +3.3V and +5V shouldn’t have more than 50 mV (the same level, because +3.3V is often derived from +5V); +12V should be less than 120 mV. So 1% is the maximum limit. The graphics show peak measurements in the bottom left corner as well as the quantity of conspicuous spikes. We have chosen 20 mV per division. We'll put these on separate pages just to avoid overloading one page.

Ripple and Noise +3.3V

+3.3V is very clean and starts with only 7.9 mV. Even with overload there is not more than 30 mV.

Ripple and Noise +5V

Again, no abnormalities are visible in the results of +5V. Under low load ripple and noise is about 10 mV. 34.8 mV is not as good as +3.3V was, but well below 50 mV. And you must take into account that a normal system doesn’t reach the full load of a PSU, particularly on 3.3V and 5V rails.

Ripple and Noise +12V

+12V is the most important rail and we put most of the load on it. A high current usually results in high ripple measurements but here you can see a clean voltage and constant characteristic. With up to 27 mV +12V is always better than the lower rails. This is frequently not the case.

Temperatures and Noise Level

As already mentioned, Antec uses an 80mm fan for cooling. They have chosen an ADDA fan with PWM control (AD0812XB-A78GL), so the regulation allows the manufacturer to start softly, which is definitely useful. Usually you need a high starting current to bring the fan into action. No we will see how loud the fan is in the practical tests.

Sound Pressure Level
Load	dB(A)
10%	18
20%	19
50%	19
80%	24
100%	28
110%	34

For a powerful PSU Antec starts very softly at only 18 dB(A) at 10% load. So we can confirm that the PWM fan has a good regulation. From 10 to 50% load it is still hardly audible. Only with full load or more the fan gets annoyingly loud.

Temperature
Load	Ambient	Exhaust
10%	26°C	30°C
20%	26°C	30°C
50%	26°C	30°C
80%	26°C	31°C
100%	26°C	32°C
110%	26°C	34°C

The temperatures were always better than expected and delta (t) is not more than 8° at full load. You can easily see why the fan gets much louder with 50% load or more. The temperatures begin to increase quickly and the heatsink is finally at capacity, requiring more airflow to keep it cooled.

Antec TruePower Quattro 1200W Conclusion

With the TruePower Quattro 1200W, Antec can’t reach the highest efficiency ever and some buyers probably won’t like the cable configuration with many fixed cables like the two peripheral harnesses. It lacks the sort of cable management many like, because there is no space for a bigger connector panel.

However, Antec delivers one of the best results for temperatures with a delta (t) of not more than 8° and a nice voltage regulation with a clean output. At 10% load +5V shows exactly 5.00V and doesn’t drop too much with more amps on it. +12V is also nice. Only +3.3V could be regulated better with a result of -3.64% at 110% load. Power Factor was amazing and reached more than 0.99 even at 230VAC. 88.67% efficiency is the result at 50% load and 120VAC, which is slightly worse than the Seasonic X-series from our previous test but not enough that we'd really worry.

The ripple and noise results are nice too. There is not more than 30-35 mV on each rail and all measurements are well within the ATX specification. If you buy this PSU, however, you should stay below 80% load, because the fan gets really loud after that. Otherwise the TruePower Quattro is very silent below 50% load and if you play games or listen to music, noise should not be a problem. Considering the sort of components you'll need to reach 80% load (960W output), you'd probably already have plenty of noise coming from your PC anyway.

The internal design is dominated by two very large heatsinks and Japanese capacitors from Nippon Chemi-Con and Sanyo. Antec is using many shrink tubes as well as foils for short circuit protection and has a good Silicon Touch IC with many safety functions. The EMI filtering is well equipped with an additional MOV behind the entrance. There is not much space for cooling in the secondary circuit but the ventilation is strong enough to solve this problem.

Eight PCIe connectors are more than enough for a triple-SLI setup as well as many peripheral connectors for up to 20 hard drives. All the cables are very long, like the main cable at 65cm. So this PSU is designed for full size towers, a common choice for high-end computer systems with multiple GPUs.

Pricing is actually quite reasonable for this sort of PSU. The standard model starts at $215 online. If you want to buy the OC model you have to pay much more and it is only a solution for extreme overclocking. We couldn't find any in stock, but it looks like prices will be north of $335. For those that need a beastly 1200W PSU, we can say that the Antec TruePower Quattro 1200W is a good choice and sets a high quality standard. If you can live with the limited cable management and you're planning to run a tri-SLI or dual HD 5970 cards, this should work just fine.