Antec NeoPower Blue 650 Watt Power Supply

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.  Their reliable and efficient line of NeoHE power supplies, now seems to be called the NeoPower series of power supplies.  Today, we take a look at the NeoPower 650 Watt Blue. Note that there is also a new 'regular' NeoPower 650 Watt power supply without the blue LED's and features an 80mm fan instead.

Upon opening the box, you will find the users manual, a power cable, and four screws.  The manual is basic, but has enough information for the user to properly install this power supply.

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

The Power Supply:

The power supply features the classic NeoHE / NeoPower matte graphite colored exterior. It still looks great. If you take a look at our Antec TruePower Trio 650 Watt Power Supply Review, you will see that this is basically a modular version of the TruePower Trio.

The bottom of the power supply features a clear 120mm fan, unusual for Antec power supplies.

This fan is lit up by three blue LED's.  This looks great inside a case with a clear window on the side.

Looking at the side of the power supply, there is an Antec label with their logo on it, the model number and a condensed specification list. Note that there are three +12v rails, each supplying up to 19 Amps, which is good for peripherals requiring lots of power and is similar to the TruePower Trio 650 Watt.  This power supply is manufactured by Seasonic.

The rear (outside of case) features an large grille to exhaust hot air from the 120mm fan.  There is an on/off switch, and an AC Power Input. This power supply offers a full range power circuit and Active PFC, so there is no need for a 110v / 240v switch. 

The Cables:

-There are five modular connections available. Previously, with the NeoHE 550 and TruePower Quattro, there were more modular cables included than there were connections.  Antec has remedied this by having one of the PCI-e cables permanently attached and including only a total of five modular cables.

This power supply features the following cables:

-A 24-pin ATX power connector.

-A 4-pin CPU ATX Power Connector

-An 8-pin EPS +12v connector

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

-6x Molex Power Connectors and 2x Floppy Power Connectors.  Note that the floppy power connectors come from splitting a molex connection.

-4x Serial ATA Power Connectors.

Cooling:

Cooling is handled by a 120mm fan in this power supply.  During testing, this fan did speed up so that I could hear a slight wind resistance sound, but it was not loud enough to be annoying.  During idle / less intensive tasks, the power supply was quiet, almost silent and could not be heard over the case and CPU fans.  I was satisfied with the sound characteristics of this power supply.

Inside the Power Supply:

* Taking this power supply apart will void the warranty.

-Inside this power supply, there are two black thick finned heatsinks to dissipate the heat from the voltage rectifiers.  There is a large transformer in the middle with a smaller one next to it.  A medium sized Nippon-Chemicon primary capacitor can also be seen.  The layout is very similar to the TruePower Trio 650 Watt.

At the tip of the heatsinks, there is an LED on it, which provides the blue lighting effects.  There is a total of 3 LED's.  Typically, they are found on the cooling fan.

-The fan inside this power supply is made by ADDA, typical in Antec power supplies.  The model of this is the AD1212HB-A71GL.  It can use a maximum of 0.37 Amps.  This fan is clear, which is quite unusual for an ADDA brand fan.  A clear piece of plastic is used to direct airflow within the power supply.

Testing:

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

-Antec Nine Hundred Case

-Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 Dual Core Processor @ 3.4 GHz

-ZeroTherm BTF90 Heatsink

-eVGA nForce 680i LT 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 Video Cards @ 625MHz 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)

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

*For additional / larger pictures of the NeoPower 650 Blue, Click Here

The results are excellent for this power supply, the voltages barely shifted.  Everything ran fine during testing; the system was stable and performed the tests as expected.  During the tests, the fan speed did increase.  It increased enough so that I could hear a whirring sound over the testing system's fans, but it was not loud enough to be of an annoyance.  Installation of the power supply was easy and there were no issues with the modular cabling. The lack of SATA connectors could be a problem for computer systems that have more than four SATA devices.  Overall, the Antec NeoPower Blue 650 Watt Power Supply is a great performing power supply that offers both 8 pin and 6 pin PCI-Express power connectors, a quiet and bright LED cooling fan and a five year warranty for around $150.

Pros +

-Great Power Delivery and Stability

-6+2-pin PCI-Express Power Connector

-Fan is quiet

-Antec Five Year Warranty

Cons -

-Not enough SATA power connectors

Techaddicts.net would like to give this power supply a 9 out of 10 rating and the Techaddicts 'Recommended Product' Award.

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