Antec NeoHE 550 Watt Modular 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 NeoHE 550 Watts.  The NeoHE series comes in 380, 430, 500 and 550 Watt versions.   Antec's NeoHE series is all about being energy efficient ,much like the Earthwatts series, which can save you money and reduce hazardous emissions. Although the NeoHE is not 80 Plus Certified, it offers up to 82% efficiency on a typical system load @115v and up to 76% efficiency at full load.  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.  It is also SLi Certified, which will allow for multi-GPU capability.

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 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, but not the NeoHE series.  It comes in an attractive graphite color, I like it.   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 casing is also identical to the EarthWatts series of power supplies.

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

On the back, there is a large ventilation grille, along with the modular connections.

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, and a condensed specification list. This Power Supply offers three +12v rails, each offering up to 18 Amps.  The +12v1 rail is reserved strictly for the processor.

Cables:

The NeoHE features modularized cables, which can help to clean up clutter within the computers chassis.  There are five modular connections on the back of the power supply.  If you are using SLI, Antec recommends that the first plug on the left be used and then any of the three to the right.  This is due to the rails being split up between these plugs.

All of the cable have 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.  If you want to use SLI, you might have to sacrifice one strand of molex or SATA connectors since there aren't enough connectors on the power supply for all the cables!  In my case, I got rid of one molex connector to make room for the second PCI-E connector.

6x- Molex Connectors

-A Molex to Floppy adapter; it has two floppy connectors.

4x- Serial ATA Power Connectors

Cooling:

The NeoHE 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 even a medium speed mode.  I'm really amazed that this small 80mm fan can keep this power supply cool, while staying quiet. It is definitely deserving of Antec's 'Quiet Computing' label.

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, large heatsink plates with fins to cool off the various voltage rectifiers.  In the middle, there is a single large main transformer. The PCB does not take up too much space inside the power supply.  There is also a wide Nippon Chemicon branded primary capacitor.  The power filtering components are on the bottom left of the picture, while the Active PFC components are on a separate logic PCB attached to the main power board.

The single 80mm fan that cools this power supply is an ADDA AD0812HB-A71GL.  It can run at a maximum of .25 Amps.

Testing:

The test system consists of the following:

-Antec Nine Hundred Case

-AMD Opteron 165 Dual Core Socket 939 CPU @ 2.9 GHz (1.60v)

-ThermalTake Blue Orb II Heat Sink

-DFI LANParty nF4 SLi-D

-2GB of Corsair XMS Platinum PC3200 Memory

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

-2x nVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS Video Cards

-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 and 2 / Deep Freeze HDR test, and read with a Multi-Meter.

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

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

Overall, the Antec NeoHE is also an amazing power supply, when compared to the Earthwatts.  For under $110, you get a power supply that offers 550 watts of power, two PCI-Express power cables, great stability, and quiet operation. This power supply can be thought of as a modular version of the Earthwatts, since everything about it is almost identical. One problem keeps this from getting a perfect score, which is the problem of giving a Molex or SATA cable up in order to get two SLI cables.  This can be a problem if you have many hard drives or components that use Molex cables.

Pros +

-Power Delivery and Stability

-Amazingly Quiet 80mm fan

-Modular

-Professional Looks

Cons -

-Problem with SLI / not enough modular plugs

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

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