Antec EarthWatts EA650 650 Watt Power Supply

The EarthWatts series of power supplies from Antec launched last year.  They originally came in lower wattages, the 380w, 430w, and 500w.  Today, we are going to take a look at the Earthwatts EA650, which is a 650 watt power supply.  This power supply is also made by a different manufacturer, the previous Earthwatts models were made by SeaSonic.  The EA650 is manufactured by Delta Electronics.  This model is also 80Plus certified.

Upon opening the box, you will find the manual, power cable, and screws.

Here are some of the main features and specifications from Antec's Website:

The Power Supply:

The power supply features a matte silver colored housing, which looks pretty outdated these days.

Looking at the side of the power supply, there is a Antec label with their logo on it, the model number and a condensed specification list.  Note that there are three 12v rails with the +12v1 and +12v2 supplying up to 22 Amps and the +12v3 rail supplying up to 25 Amps, which is great for peripherals requiring more power such as a multi-core CPU and/or multiple graphics cards.

There is an large grill on the back which allows the 120mm fan to exhaust hot air, an on/off switch and AC Power Input.  This power supply does feature Active PFC, so there is no need for a switch to select the input voltage.  The rear grill really looks like the same as the OEM Delta power supplies found in name brand retail computers.

This power supply features the following cables:

-A 24-pin ATX power connector with removable 4 pin for backwards 20-pin compatibility.

-A 4+4 pin (8-pin) +12v EPS Power Connector and a 4-pin CPU +12v power connector

-1x 6+2 Pin and 1x 6 Pin PCI Express Power Connectors.

-6x Molex Power Connectors

-6x Serial ATA Power Connectors

-2x Floppy Power Connectors

Cooling:

There is a 120mm fan on the bottom of this power supply. During testing, at idle loads, this fan is very quiet.  With loads, the fan slowly sped up to what I would call a low to medium speed, which was audible, but not bothersome at all.

Inside the Power Supply:

* Taking this power supply apart will void the warranty.

Inside the power supply, there are two large black colored finned heat sinks that has many fins to cool down the voltage rectifiers. A smaller silver heat sink cools the lone voltage rectifier to the left of the picture. There is a large transformer in the upper middle of the picture and a tiny one underneath.  The layout and build quality of this power supply is great.  Although many users will not see the insides of their PSU, the black PCB looks good. The Primary capacitor is SamXon branded.

The Primary capacitor is SamXon branded.

The fan inside is a ADDA branded fan, which is what I consider to be of high quality. It has the model number AD1212HB-A71GL with a maximum draw of .37 AMPs.

Testing:

For this power supply, the test system consists of the following:

-Antec Nine Hundred Case

-Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor @ 3.4 GHz

-ZeroTherm Nirvana 120 Heatsink

-eVGA nForce 680i SLi Motherboard

-2GB (1GB x 2) of Mushkin XP2-8500 DDRII-1066 Memory

-320GB x 4 Western Digital 16MB Cache Hard Drives

-2x nVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS (G92) Video Cards @ 715MHz Core / 1000 MHz Memory

-Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital Sound Card

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

-4x 120MM fans, 1x 200mm fan

-2x CCFL Lights

(Multimeter Results)

*For additional / larger pictures of the Antec EA650, Click Here

*Voltages are at 'Max Load', running Orthos, SiSoft 2009 Hard Drive Benchmark and 3DMark06 CPU Test 1 and 2 / Deep Freeze HDR test, and read with a Multi-Meter.

Capacitor Brands:

Great/Good

Primary: SamXon

Secondary: Ltec

Voltage Results:

+The results were great for this power supply and are within range.  The voltages budged a little, but are well within range.

Stability Results:

+Everything ran fine during testing, the system was stable and performed the tests as expected. 

Fan Speed Impressions:

+ At idle loads, the fan is very quiet and the sound it produces cannot be heard over my test system's cooling fans.  At loads, it makes a some air movement noise but is still quiet.

Installation:

+Installation of this power supply went well.  There were no issues fitting it inside the test system's case.

Conclusion:

The Antec EarthWatts 650 Watt is a great addition to the EarthWatts series of power supplies.  While the outer shell and cables are plain, the performance and value make up for this.  It offers a modest amount of connectors and features a quiet fan.  At a affordable price of around $85-$100, this is the perfect power supply for anyone looking for a affordable power supply that is also energy efficient, but keep in mind that there are only two PCI-e power connectors, so multi-gpu is limited to cards that require only one pci-e power connector.

Pros +

-Great power output

-Three year warranty

-Quiet fan

-Great build quality

-Good value

Cons -

-Not modular

-Plain looking

-Not enough PCI-e connectors

Techaddicts.net would like to give this power supply a 'Great' rating and the Highly Recommended award.

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