Antec TruePower Quattro 850 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 True Power lineup of power supplies is up to its fourth model, the Quattro.  We previously reviewed their Trio 650 Watt, which received a good score.  Today, we look at the 850 Watt version of the True Power Quattro.  It is also available in a 1000 watt version.

Upon opening the box, you will find the users manual, a higher gauge power cable, and black colored screws.

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

The Power Supply:

The power supply features a matte black colored exterior with yellow colored 'racing stripes'.  The '850 watt' designation is also seen in black numbering.  This is a welcome change in the power supply world.

-The top of the power supply

-The bottom of the power supply.  Note that there is a small vent hole here.

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 four +12v rails, each supplying up to 18 Amps, which is good for peripherals requiring lots of power.  This power supply is manufactured by Enhance.

The rear (outside of case) features an 80mm fan to cool off the entire power supply.  There is an on/off switch, and an AC Power Input.  Note that the 'racing stripes' also extend to here. This power supply offers a full range power circuit and Active PFC, so there is no need for a 110v / 240v switch. 

The rear (inside of the case) features large circular holes to allow for the 80mm fan to pull air through the various heatsinks and components.  This power supply is modular, so the modular connections are found here.  There are also a few attached non-removable cables.

The Cables:

-There are five modular connections available.  Three are dedicated to HDD/SATA/Optical drives, and two are dedicated to the 6-pin PCI-e connectors.  An issue that i've found to be a little annoying is the fact that you cannot use all of the SATA/Molex Modular cables.  There are three sets of SATA cables and three sets of Molex cables.  I suppose that you can mix them, but if you intend on using 8 SATA devices or 9 molex devices, you may run into this issue.  It is a rather rare case though.

This power supply features the following cables:

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

-A 4-pin CPU ATX Power Connector

-An 8-pin EPS +12v connector

-2x  6+2-Pin PCI-Express Power Connectors and 2x 6-Pin PCI-Express connectors

-9x Molex Power Connectors and 2x Floppy Power Connectors

-8x Serial ATA Power Connectors.

Cooling:

Cooling is handled by a single 80mm fan in this power supply.  During testing, this fan did speed up so that I could hear a slight whirring sound, but it was not loud enough to be annoying.  During idle / less intensive tasks, the power supply was quiet 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 a dense array of heatsink fins covering most of the components from view.  There is a large transformer near where the modular connections exit the power supply.  A tall Nippon-Chemicon primary capacitor can also be seen.

-The fan inside this power supply is made my ADDA, typical in Antec power supplies.  The model of this is the AD0812UB-A70GL.  It can use a maximum of 0.30 Amps.

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 TruePower Quattro 850 Watt, Click Here

The results are excellent for this power supply, the voltages barely shifted, it was nothing significant at all.  Everything ran fine during testing; the system was stable and performed the tests as expected.  During the tests, the fan speed did increase a little.  It increased enough so that I could hear a slight whirring sound over the testing system's fans, but it was not loud enough to be annoying.  Installation of the power supply was easy and there were no issues with the modular cabling.  Overall, the Antec TruePower Quattro 850 Watt is an excellent power supply.   It is multi-gpu ready with a two 6+2-pin and two 6-pin PCI-E power connectors.   It can be found online for about $200.

Pros +

-Excellent Power Delivery and Stability

-Two 6+2-pin PCI-Express Power Connectors

-Fan is quieter than most 850 Watt Power Supplies

-80Plus Certification

-Five Year Warranty

Cons -

-Not enough modular connections to utilize all SATA/Molex connectors.

Techaddicts.net would like to give this power supply a 9.5 out of 10 rating and the Techaddicts 'Editors Choice' Award.

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