Antec Earthwatts 500 Watt Power Supply Review

Antec has been in the power supply market for many years.  They have plenty of experience in providing power supplies that offer both value and great performance.  Today, we are going to look at the Antec Earthwatts - 500 watt version.  The Earthwatts series comes in 380, 430, and 500 Watt versions.   Antec's Earthwatts series is all about being energy efficient, which can save you money and reduce hazardous emissions.  The Earthwatts is 80 Plus Certified, meaning that it is more than 80% efficient across 20, 50, and 100 percent power loads.  It also features Active PFC, for even greater efficiency.  This power supply is also part of Antec's Quiet Computing type of products, so the power supply's cooling fan should run quiet.

Upon opening the box, there is the Manual, Power Cable, and four screws to mount the power supply in the computer's case.  The manual is very basic, but is detailed enough to inform computer users on how to remove an old power supply, and install this power supply in their case. 

The Power Supply:

Most of Antec's Power Supplies come with a plain 'classic' PC grey. It is a departure away from the fancy matte/mirror/glossy paints that most power supplies have today.   On the back there is a single 80mm fan, power input and a power switch.  Interestingly, a search of the UL code shows that this power supply is manufactured by Seasonic.  Seasonic power supplies are generally great in performance, so I am expecting this Antec to offer the same performance and reliability. 

The Antec logo is embossed on the side of the power supply.

Here is the spec sheet from Antec's website:

On the side of the power supply, there is a sticker with Antec's logo and model, an 80 Plus efficiency sticker, along with some specifications.  This Power Supply offers two +12v rails, both offering 17 Amps.  The +12v1 rail is reserved strictly for the processor, and the +12v2 rail is reserved for the motherboard and 12v peripherals such as hard drives and DVD drives.  

Cables:

The Earthwatts does not offer any special cable features, such as meshed sleeves to wrap around the cables or modularized cables.  This results in a big mess of cables coming out of the power supply.  

Only the 24-pin ATX cable offers a mesh sleeve over it.

This power supply offers:

-A mesh sleeved 24-pin ATX cable, with the option to turn it into a 20-pin connector for backwards compatibility. 

-An 8-pin EPS +12v Cable

-A 4-pin CPU Cable

2x- 6-pin PCI-Express Power Connectors.  Although there are two PCI-E connectors, this power supply is not SLI or Crossfire certified.

6x- Molex Connectors

-A floppy connector

4x- Serial ATA Power Connectors

Cooling:

The Earthwatts uses a single 80mm fan to cool down this power supply.  It draws air from the back of the power supply via its grills.   During testing, the fan was near silent when idle.  It rarely went to high / fulll speed mode.  I'm really amazed that this small 80mm fan can keep this power supply cool, while staying quiet.

Inside the Power Supply:

* Taking this power supply apart will void the warranty, as noted by a small sticker on top of a screw needed to fully open the power supply up.

Inside the power supply, you can see that there are small finned heat sinks to cool off the various voltage rectifiers.  The PCB does not take up too much space inside the power supply.  There is a large Rubycon branded primary capacitor.  The Active PFC components can be seen attached to the power input area of the power supply.

The single 80mm fan that cools this power supply is an ADDA AD0812HS-A70GL.  It can run at a maximum of .25 Amps.

There is a plastic guide attached to direct airflow over hot components within this power supply. 

Testing:

The test system consists of the following:

-Antec Nine Hundred Case

-AMD Opteron 165 Dual Core Socket 939 CPU @ 2.9 GHz (1.55v)

-ThermalTake Blue Orb II Heat Sink

-DFI LANParty nF4 Ultra-D

-2GB of Corsair XMS Platinum PC3200 Memory

-320GB x 3 Western Digital 16MB Cache Hard Drives

-nVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS Video Card @ 625MHz Core / 920MHz Memory

-Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital Sound Card

-Sony 16x DVD-RAM / 18x Samsung DVD-RAM Drives

-2x 120MM fans

-2x CCFL Lights

Voltages are at 'Max Load', running 3DMark06 CPU Test 1 / Deep Freeze HDR test, and read with a Multi-Meter.

For larger / additional pictures of this power supply, Click Here

The results were great, all of the voltages are operating within limits.  During testing, the power supply fan stayed quiet and went to high speed only during the Deep Freeze HDR test, which can be very demanding.  The test system remained stable and reliable through load testing and daily use. 

Overall, the Antec Earthwatts is an amazing power supply.  For under $100, you get a power supply that offers 500 watts of power, two PCI-Express power cables, 80+ efficiency, great stability, and quiet operation.  A few things keep this power supply from getting a perfect score, which is the lack of cable 'management' features, such as sleeving and/or modular cables and the plain grey color.

Pros +

-Excellent Power Delivery and Stability

-Amazingly Quiet 80mm fan

-Cheaper than most power supplies in its class

Cons -

-Plain Grey Color

-Non Sleeved Cabling

-Cables are not modular

-Does not offer SLI / Crossfire certification

Techaddicts.net would like to give this power supply a 9 out of 10 rating and the 'Recommended' Award for its excellent value, quietness, and performance. 

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