Antec Signature Series SG-650 650 Watt Modular Power Supply

Antec has been offering power supplies for quite a long time now.  Their power supplies are synonymous with value and performance, with their Basiq, NeoPower, TruePower Trio and Quattro series.  The Signature series breaks away from this and offers up a power supply like no other.  Antec's Signature series of power supplies are of the highest quality, featuring true wattage ratings along with top of the line components, such as Japanese branded capacitors and cooling fan.   These power supplies also offer modular power cables, SLi Certification, 80Plus Bronze certification and a test report, certified with a signature.  Truly unique.  Previously, we have reviewed the SG850, the 850 Watt model from the Signature Series.  Now, we are going to take a look at its younger sibling, the SG650, a 650 Watt model.

Even the box is high quality, featuring a thick card board material and fancy texturing.  It is sort of like a high quality shoebox, very sturdy as well.  The empty box weighs more than some boxes with PSU's inside. 

Upon opening the box, you are greeted by the SG650's test report, with a signature on the bottom, certifying that it completed all the tests satisfactorily.  In the test report, Antec checks for 80Plus Bronze ratings at 20%, 50%, and 100% loads.   They also check for Full Load Line Regulation at 90v, 115v, and 264v loads.  Shortage protection is also tested on the 3.3v, 5v, 12v, and 5Vsb rails.  Lastly, Over Voltage Protection and Over Current Protection are tested. A slightly thicker 16 AWG AC power cable, manual, black screws, and the modular cables are also included.

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

The Power Supply:

The power supply features a matte black colored housing and a black colored fan grill, which looks good.  This power supply looks nearly identical to the SG850, except for an extra red modular connector missing on this model. 

This power supply is slightly larger compared to other power supplies.

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 with the +12v1 and +12v2 supplying up to 22 Amps while the +12v3 rail supplies up to 25 Amps.  The 3.3v supplies up to 24 Amps and the +5v supplies up to 24 Amps. The efficiency is 82 percent or greater at 20%, 50% and 100% loads. According to the 80Plus test result page, this power supply has a typical efficiency of about 85%, which is great! This gives it an 80Plus Bronze rating.

There is an large honeycomb style grill on the back which allows the 80 mm fan to exhaust hot air, a power switch, and an AC Power Input. This power supply does feature Active PFC, so there is no need for a switch to select the input voltage. 

There are three available modular connections on the rear of this power supply.  While it might seem that there are too few modular connections, Antec calls it Hybrid Cable Management, where necessary cables are non-modular and cables that are optional are modularized.   Next to each modular plug, there is a label that describes which rail it goes to.  The two black modular plugs are for the molex, floppy, and sata power connectors, while the red modular plug is for an extra PCI-e power connector.

This power supply features the following cables:

-A 24-pin ATX power connector

-A 4-pin +12v CPU power connector

-An 8-pin +12v EPS Power Connector

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

-5x Molex Power Connectors

-5x Serial ATA Power Connectors

-1x Floppy Power Connectors

Cooling:

There is a 80mm fan on the rear of this power supply.  During testing, at idle loads, this fan stayed nearly silent. With loads, the fan made a small whirring sound every couple of seconds while it was transitioning to a higher speed.  This fan features a PWM control, so there are more 'steps' in between the lowest speed and highest speed.  It is very responsive to temperature changes as well.  The sounds were never bothersome though.  I'm very happy with the noise characteristics of this power supply.

Inside the Power Supply:

* Taking this power supply apart will void the warranty

Inside the power supply, there are two large PCB's, one on each part of the casing.  The side of the case that has the fan on it holds the PCB with the primary capacitors.  There are also two narrow black heatsinks, which are not too big, because of the efficiency that this power supply offers.  On the other PCB are the secondary caps along with the main transformer.  Both primary and secondary capacitors are manufactured in Japan, both very high quality. Quite an interesting and unique design.  This power supply is manufactured by Delta Electronics, which is a new supplier for Antec.  They have previously used Seasonic.  It's PCB layout and design is also nearly identical to the SG850, except for a few missing capacitors and electronics.  The PCB and manufacturing quality is top notch, I've never seen such neatness in the wiring, gluing and soldering of components.

The Primary capacitors are both Nippon-Chemicon and Hitachi branded.

The secondary capacitors are Nippon-Chemicon branded.

The fan inside is the same Nidec Beta SL branded fan that is found in the SG850. It has the model number D08A-12PS3 with a maximum draw of .50 AMPs.

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 (1.4v)

-ZeroTherm Nirvana 120 Heatsink

-eVGA nForce 680i SLi Motherboard

-4GB (2GB x 2) of OCZ Platinum DDRII-1066 Memory

-320GB x 4 Western Digital 7200RPM 16MB Cache Hard Drives

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

-Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital Sound Card

-Asus 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 Signature 650 Watt, Click Here

*Voltages are at a 'Max Load' for a typical gaming computer, running Orthos, Sisoft Sandra Hard Drive benchmark and 3DMark06 CPU Test 1 and 2 / Deep Freeze HDR test, and read with a Multi-Meter.

Capacitor Brands:

Primary: Excellent

Secondary: Excellent

Primary: Nippon-Chemicon and Hitachi

Secondary: Nippon-Chemicon

Voltage Results:

+The results were excellent for this power supply, the results being well within range.  The voltages barely changed when transitioning from an idle state to a load state, all rails remained quite strong.

Stability Results:

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

Fan Speed Impressions:

+During the tests, the fan speed did not vary much, being nearly silent in idle mode. A few whirring sounds could be heard, but they were not annoying.  This is amazing, since the whole power supply is cooled by a small 80mm fan.  It shows you how efficient this power supply is.

Installation:

+ Installation of this power supply went well.  There were no issues fitting this inside the test system's case, despite its slightly larger chassis.  The hybrid modular cables helped a lot in keeping the inside of the case neat and tidy.

Conclusion:

This power supply would be ideal for anyone looking to build a multi core gaming / workstation system with two video cards.  It is SLi Certified for up to two GeForce 7900 GTX's, which is great, but I'm sure it can support some of today's newer cards as well. The amount of available power connectors is adequate and up to date. The fan is also very quiet and is great to find in a 650 watt class power supply.  At around $170 this power supply is a little bit pricey, but its unbeatable performance and quality clearly makes up for it.  Potential buyers can think of it as a handpicked power supply, guaranteed to perform at its designed wattage via a signature found on the included test report.  Overall, this is an excellent power supply that offers top notch performance and quality and should be purchased by anyone looking for nothing but the best (in a 650 Watt class power supply).

Pros +

-Excellent / Unbeatable power output

-Five Year Warranty

-Fan is quiet at typical loads

-Hybrid modular cabling

Cons -

-Could offer power connectors

-A tad expensive

Techaddicts.net would like to give this power supply the Editors' Choice Award!

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