Thoughts and rating
Antec has revamped its mid-wattage line of power supplies with models that conform to the highest efficiency standard mandated for consumer PSUs. Highlighting that power efficiency of the EarthWatts Platinum isn't just marketing bombast, as shown by our calculations on the first page, there's real money to be saved if running at mid-loads for extended periods.
Examining the EarthWatts Platinum 650W supply further shows it's based on a tweaked FSP Aurum design. Crunching the numbers tells us that this is a basic Platinum-certified PSU, focussing on the headline efficiency figure while being at least average in most other respects: Antec's top-line supplies are reserved for higher wattages, and we will see a premium Platinum supply in the very near future, according to company representatives.
Solid, quiet and built from established foundations, the £100 asking price is high for a 650W model. Whether it's valuable to you depends upon just how much you use it; the premium over, say, a Bronze-certified supply can be made back in less than a year.
Bottom line: the Antec EarthWatts Platinum 650W is a mainstream PSU whose focus is on providing super-efficient power. Consider it if you're really into wattage-guzzling distributed computing. Worthy of a performance award for bringing high efficiency to a mid-wattage PSU.
The Good
Platinum-rated efficiency for mainstream wattage
Real financial savings to be made if run for long periods
Fairly quiet in use
The Bad
Expensive for a 650W supply
Merely average in non-efficiency areas
HEXUS Rating
Antec EarthWatts Platinum 650W
HEXUS Awards
Antec EarthWatts Platinum 650W
HEXUS Where2Buy
TBC.
HEXUS Right2Reply
At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
