Good review but I really don't understand the point of a low-mid wattage PSU that's 170mm in length when other brands on the market are only 140mm? Doesn't the target market for these also go hand in hand with compact short depth Micro-ATX cases?...
PS: How about a roundup on the really low wattage stuff for increasingly popular Mini-ITX builds (ie, 40-160w "Pico-PSU"), and maybe Seasonic G360 (budget, Gold rated, 140mm length, ultra quiet) / X400 (totally fanless), etc, which are all a lot more interesting from a custom build HTPC / "netbox" perspective?
Well at this point the target market is everyone who isn't running SLI or an overclocked HEDT CPU. In most cases (figurative and literal) the smaller PSU is nice but some people still do mid ATX cases with ATX mobos rather than uATX so I guess this is the PSU for them.
Well, it this is indeed based on the SeaSonic S12G, then it's like a S12G but modular, for almost the same price. I can easily see how this can be appealing.
I believe the size is due to the "silence" of the PSU. smaller/compact PSUs would be harder to cool with no/less air flow.
I have the seasonic G360 it is a beast. even with a highly oc'd 4770k @4.5ghz and gtx 670 oc'd to 1250 with boost. it doesn't have a single hickup. but that said, Most workloads are either high GPU with low cpu load (gaming) or the opposite no gpu and high cpu load. Not many workloads can max out a 4core with HT AND a upper tier GPU. So in the end i'm sure i won't hit the 360w limit. But I too would be interested in small PSUs in the 40-160w range.
There are more and more people that wants a quiet computing, and use midtower or even full tower cases where space is NOT an issue. It's a trend that Antec chimed in.
Yep - that's I I still have my huge Antec P182 case, with sound deadening panels. While I prefer shorter PSUs, I prefer silence even more, and with a large case it doesn't matter what I use. I've been using a Corsair 650W PSU for the last 6 years, which for all intents and purposes, is dead silent.
Definitely one where you'll want to measure your available CPU space before ordering. Some cases the length would be a definite problem. I think I could get it physically in my case but having to attach or remove cables might be the problem as it's push up pretty close to the hard drive bays in the front of the case. Otherwise, it sounds like a good unit and a good price for most mainstream users that don't overclock and that have only one GPU to power.
The very first thing I look for in power supply reviews is which company is the manufacturer. Some you trust, some your iffy about and others you simply try to avoid. It's sometimes very hard to get that information and companies tend to jump from one manufacturer to the next in the middle of a products life cycle which makes it even harder.
I am very pleased to see Antec (and Cooler Master come to think of it..) partnering up with Seasonic. It means I will be buying a lot more of their Power Supplies. I am also pleased to see Antect paying more attention to their cabling. It's always been a bone of contention for me and fully sleeved cables with no multi colored wires is always a plus.
Since I am pretty confident that someone at Antec will read this.. You dropped the ball on a lot of your casing designs of late. The Sonata needs a overhaul and the Lanboy should be a top seller if it's based on it's old Super Lan boy Aluminum design with slight modifications to factor in new cooling and cable management. ( a Removable MB Tray would be nice for enthusiasts to..) It's really not rocket science to figure out.
Take the Sonata redesign Throw in a power supply like this one and you got a win/win. The Sonata was billed as quiet but yeah.. no it wasn't still it's a popular casing that does need a minor refresh as well..
I've got a Solo II (part of their Sonata lineup) that's pretty quiet, and has excellent build quality. The HDD suspension system is nice too, as is the SSD mount location. It's probably one of the shortest cases that supports full ATX boards and large graphics cards without major flaws or an insane price tag. With that being said I do feel they could improve on it a bit. But for its size they did quite well.
So I can get a Seasonic G550 for about $40 less than this Antec/Seasonic PSU. I also get the same 5 year warranty on the unit and it's Gold plus certified. How do Antec expect to sell their branded Seasonic PSU?
It's good to see the reviews finally moving from insanely crazy to regular overkill but 550W is still way out of range of what an average user needs and that's even including a heavy duty graphics card, for those 350W are more than plenty. For "average" by that definition I'd like to see a review of a Seasonic X-400FL Platinum or a similarly good performer. The only point I can see in going for overkill is the better optimum efficiency at medium loads and quite frankly the Antec is simply not that good at this rating and price point...
Antec only makes good PSUs now and even then they can be quite expensive compared to the competition (even SeaSonic). I remember back when Antec was the brand for computer cases with their 900, 300, and sonata series. It's sad to see a once big-name company like Antec be a shadow of their former selves.
Thanks for giving us a review on a lower-rated (less than 1kW) power supply! I really appreciate it - these are what I use when building my mini-ITX cases! Well, I also use SFX PSUs like the one Silverstone supplies.
I would also love to see a test of some common GPUs (single, not SLI/Crossfire configs), Intel i5-i7s, and what is really needed to power such "common" systems.
H81/87, Core-i5/7-4xxxS, SSD and GTX 750 Ti OC, BD-ROM are (at the wall) < 30W idle and around 130W if you throw FurMark and wPrime at it; that's already after the loss of the power conversion. You do the math...
"I would also love to see a test of some common GPUs (single, not SLI/Crossfire configs), Intel i5-i7s, and what is really needed to power such "common" systems."
As Daniel Egger said - far less than most people think. I have an i5-3570, even OC'd to 4GHz under Prime doesn't break the 100w barrier. Idle's at 37w (with discrete GPU which falls to 26w iGPU only), and it's not even a Haswell. Throw in an efficient nVidia Maxwell based GFX card (eg, 750Ti) and run Prime + Furmark and you're still under 150w under unrealistic synthetic "double power virus" conditions. For most normal gaming, it's nearer 80-120w (for a rig that can run most games at 1080p on console equivalent "Medium" setting) and wouldn't even use 50% capacity of a Seasonic G360. For high end gaming rigs, even a new GTX 970 would remain under 300w (maybe nearer 250w if you undervolted it a little) and easily function off of a decent 500-550w PSU at 50-60% PSU capacity.
For non gaming rigs, it's more like 40-70w just browsing the web & using office, 100w max full video encoding, etc, and that could easily run off a Pico-PSU laptop style power brick. All above figures on my rigs are measured at the wall with a kill-a-watt on Gold rated Seasonics, not merely 'calculated' from TDP, etc.
> For non gaming rigs, it's more like 40-70w just browsing the web & using office, 100w max full video encoding, etc, and that could easily run off a Pico-PSU laptop style power brick.
In fact HP and and a few other companies are selling not only all-in-ones but also mini-tower PCs which are powered by external 19V power bricks. I ordered one of those a couple of months back for a family member. Sure there's no discrete GPU in that but it still offers quite a bit of bang and is perfectly capable of handling any typical office activities and even light gaming. I couldn't make it draw more than 70W at the wall.
Referring to 28 watts out of the power supply, and 37 watts measured at the wall, the reviewer writes that "most systems will be closer to twice that power draw at idle." So I'd like to underline the fact that you are measuring 37 watts at the wall idle even with a GPU.
Hrmm... $120 is a steep price to pay for silence on a component that is typically the least offender as far as noise in concerned (ie: Case, CPU fan and GPU are the big noise makers).
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bsim500 - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
Good review but I really don't understand the point of a low-mid wattage PSU that's 170mm in length when other brands on the market are only 140mm? Doesn't the target market for these also go hand in hand with compact short depth Micro-ATX cases?...PS: How about a roundup on the really low wattage stuff for increasingly popular Mini-ITX builds (ie, 40-160w "Pico-PSU"), and maybe Seasonic G360 (budget, Gold rated, 140mm length, ultra quiet) / X400 (totally fanless), etc, which are all a lot more interesting from a custom build HTPC / "netbox" perspective?
willis936 - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
Well at this point the target market is everyone who isn't running SLI or an overclocked HEDT CPU. In most cases (figurative and literal) the smaller PSU is nice but some people still do mid ATX cases with ATX mobos rather than uATX so I guess this is the PSU for them.willis936 - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
Also after looking at price and results I can't see why anyone would forgo a SS PSU if they care about sound and performance at this price.Bobsy - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
Well, it this is indeed based on the SeaSonic S12G, then it's like a S12G but modular, for almost the same price. I can easily see how this can be appealing.bebimbap - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
I believe the size is due to the "silence" of the PSU.smaller/compact PSUs would be harder to cool with no/less air flow.
I have the seasonic G360 it is a beast. even with a highly oc'd 4770k @4.5ghz and gtx 670 oc'd to 1250 with boost. it doesn't have a single hickup. but that said, Most workloads are either high GPU with low cpu load (gaming) or the opposite no gpu and high cpu load. Not many workloads can max out a 4core with HT AND a upper tier GPU. So in the end i'm sure i won't hit the 360w limit. But I too would be interested in small PSUs in the 40-160w range.
TelstarTOS - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
There are more and more people that wants a quiet computing, and use midtower or even full tower cases where space is NOT an issue. It's a trend that Antec chimed in.kmmatney - Monday, October 6, 2014 - link
Yep - that's I I still have my huge Antec P182 case, with sound deadening panels. While I prefer shorter PSUs, I prefer silence even more, and with a large case it doesn't matter what I use. I've been using a Corsair 650W PSU for the last 6 years, which for all intents and purposes, is dead silent.The_Assimilator - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
This PSU utilizes the S12G platform, which is not designed for modularity. Hence additional space was needed for the modular cables' PCB.JoBalz - Friday, November 7, 2014 - link
Definitely one where you'll want to measure your available CPU space before ordering. Some cases the length would be a definite problem. I think I could get it physically in my case but having to attach or remove cables might be the problem as it's push up pretty close to the hard drive bays in the front of the case. Otherwise, it sounds like a good unit and a good price for most mainstream users that don't overclock and that have only one GPU to power.JoBalz - Friday, November 7, 2014 - link
Excuse me, I meant to measure your available PSU space before ordering (particularly if you're replacing an existing unit),.mindbomb - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
This seems like a pretty good psu. Should be enough for an i7 5820k and single gtx 980, with plenty of room left for overclocking.just4U - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
The very first thing I look for in power supply reviews is which company is the manufacturer. Some you trust, some your iffy about and others you simply try to avoid. It's sometimes very hard to get that information and companies tend to jump from one manufacturer to the next in the middle of a products life cycle which makes it even harder.I am very pleased to see Antec (and Cooler Master come to think of it..) partnering up with Seasonic. It means I will be buying a lot more of their Power Supplies. I am also pleased to see Antect paying more attention to their cabling. It's always been a bone of contention for me and fully sleeved cables with no multi colored wires is always a plus.
Since I am pretty confident that someone at Antec will read this.. You dropped the ball on a lot of your casing designs of late. The Sonata needs a overhaul and the Lanboy should be a top seller if it's based on it's old Super Lan boy Aluminum design with slight modifications to factor in new cooling and cable management. ( a Removable MB Tray would be nice for enthusiasts to..) It's really not rocket science to figure out.
Take the Sonata redesign Throw in a power supply like this one and you got a win/win. The Sonata was billed as quiet but yeah.. no it wasn't still it's a popular casing that does need a minor refresh as well..
Anyway E. Great review.
Alexvrb - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
I've got a Solo II (part of their Sonata lineup) that's pretty quiet, and has excellent build quality. The HDD suspension system is nice too, as is the SSD mount location. It's probably one of the shortest cases that supports full ATX boards and large graphics cards without major flaws or an insane price tag. With that being said I do feel they could improve on it a bit. But for its size they did quite well.Alan G - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
So I can get a Seasonic G550 for about $40 less than this Antec/Seasonic PSU. I also get the same 5 year warranty on the unit and it's Gold plus certified. How do Antec expect to sell their branded Seasonic PSU?Daniel Egger - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
It's good to see the reviews finally moving from insanely crazy to regular overkill but 550W is still way out of range of what an average user needs and that's even including a heavy duty graphics card, for those 350W are more than plenty. For "average" by that definition I'd like to see a review of a Seasonic X-400FL Platinum or a similarly good performer. The only point I can see in going for overkill is the better optimum efficiency at medium loads and quite frankly the Antec is simply not that good at this rating and price point...CknSalad - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
Antec only makes good PSUs now and even then they can be quite expensive compared to the competition (even SeaSonic). I remember back when Antec was the brand for computer cases with their 900, 300, and sonata series. It's sad to see a once big-name company like Antec be a shadow of their former selves.romrunning - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
Thanks for giving us a review on a lower-rated (less than 1kW) power supply! I really appreciate it - these are what I use when building my mini-ITX cases! Well, I also use SFX PSUs like the one Silverstone supplies.I would also love to see a test of some common GPUs (single, not SLI/Crossfire configs), Intel i5-i7s, and what is really needed to power such "common" systems.
romrunning - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
Also, thanks for calling out the price. $120 is a bit steep for a budget/mainstream gaming build.Daniel Egger - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
H81/87, Core-i5/7-4xxxS, SSD and GTX 750 Ti OC, BD-ROM are (at the wall) < 30W idle and around 130W if you throw FurMark and wPrime at it; that's already after the loss of the power conversion. You do the math...bsim500 - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
"I would also love to see a test of some common GPUs (single, not SLI/Crossfire configs), Intel i5-i7s, and what is really needed to power such "common" systems."As Daniel Egger said - far less than most people think. I have an i5-3570, even OC'd to 4GHz under Prime doesn't break the 100w barrier. Idle's at 37w (with discrete GPU which falls to 26w iGPU only), and it's not even a Haswell. Throw in an efficient nVidia Maxwell based GFX card (eg, 750Ti) and run Prime + Furmark and you're still under 150w under unrealistic synthetic "double power virus" conditions. For most normal gaming, it's nearer 80-120w (for a rig that can run most games at 1080p on console equivalent "Medium" setting) and wouldn't even use 50% capacity of a Seasonic G360. For high end gaming rigs, even a new GTX 970 would remain under 300w (maybe nearer 250w if you undervolted it a little) and easily function off of a decent 500-550w PSU at 50-60% PSU capacity.
For non gaming rigs, it's more like 40-70w just browsing the web & using office, 100w max full video encoding, etc, and that could easily run off a Pico-PSU laptop style power brick. All above figures on my rigs are measured at the wall with a kill-a-watt on Gold rated Seasonics, not merely 'calculated' from TDP, etc.
Daniel Egger - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
> For non gaming rigs, it's more like 40-70w just browsing the web & using office, 100w max full video encoding, etc, and that could easily run off a Pico-PSU laptop style power brick.In fact HP and and a few other companies are selling not only all-in-ones but also mini-tower PCs which are powered by external 19V power bricks. I ordered one of those a couple of months back for a family member. Sure there's no discrete GPU in that but it still offers quite a bit of bang and is perfectly capable of handling any typical office activities and even light gaming. I couldn't make it draw more than 70W at the wall.
KAlmquist - Sunday, October 5, 2014 - link
Referring to 28 watts out of the power supply, and 37 watts measured at the wall, the reviewer writes that "most systems will be closer to twice that power draw at idle." So I'd like to underline the fact that you are measuring 37 watts at the wall idle even with a GPU.Morawka - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
whats wrong with all the images on this site? they are all broken. Same with daily tech. (reset your cache, you'll see.missing on both my iphone and desktop.
TelstarTOS - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
I've seen this 5V regulation issue on another PSU, I believe Seasonic's own latest G-series. I dont like it but it's within specs anyway.bhima - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Hrmm... $120 is a steep price to pay for silence on a component that is typically the least offender as far as noise in concerned (ie: Case, CPU fan and GPU are the big noise makers).