Antec TruePower Trio! 650 Watt 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 good performance.  Today, we look at the Antec TruePower Trio - 650 watt version. The name 'Trio' comes from the three +12v rails that this power supply offers.  This power supply is SLI certified, so it is a great value for system builders looking to build an SLI based system.  It is also RoHS certified, so it is friendlier for the environment.  Antec offers a 5 year warranty for this power supply, which is great.

Upon opening the box, there is the Manual, Power Cable, and four screws to mount the power supply in the computer's case.

The Power Supply:

The power supply looks pretty plain.  A classic internal PC grey color is used, which is a departure away from the fancy matte/mirror/glossy paints that most power supplies have today.  The chassis is almost identical to the Seasonic S12 and M12, closer to the S12, due to it having no modularized cables; meaning that it is built by Seasonic.  A search of the UL code confirms this.  Seasonic power supplies are generally great in performance, so I am expecting this Antec to offer the same performance and reliability. 

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, along with some specifications. Although this power supply offers three +12v rails, I found it strange that the rails would be listed as "+12v, +12v, and +12v, Max. Load 52 A." on the power supply's sticker.

Cables:

The True Power Trio does not offer any special cable features, such as mesh sleeves to wrap the cables in or modular cables.  This results in a big mess of cables (see the picture above).   Only the 24-pin ATX cable offers 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

6x- Molex Connectors

A floppy connector

4x- Serial ATA Power Connectors

2x- Fan Only connectors.   This 'Fan Only' connector is a unique feature that this power supply incorporates. When attaching a fan to this connector, the power supply will automatically control the fans speed according to the ambient case temperature (depends on where the power supply is located).  This is a great feature.  I would like to see more power supply companies using it; it really helps in quieting your case fans down. 

Lastly, there is a 3 pin FAN monitoring cable, which lets your motherboard monitor the power supply's cooling fan, to ensure that the power supply does not fail if the fan fails. 

Cooling:

The True Power Trio uses one large 120mm fan on the bottom to cool it's internal components.  During testing, this fan was quiet.  It did go into medium and high speed mode during CPU / GPU intensive moments; but it was still quiet at these speeds.   It has a fan monitoring cable that plugs into the motherboard.

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, you can see that there are large finned heat sinks to cool off the various voltage rectifiers.  The PCB does not take up too much space inside the power supply.  There is a large Hitachi branded primary capacitor.  The Active PFC components can be seen attached to the ventilation grille side of the power supply. 

The 120mm fan that cools this power supply is an ADDA AD1212HB-A73GL, which is similar to the ultra quiet A71GL found in the Seasonic S12/M12.  It can run at a maximum of .37 Amps. There is a plastic guide attached to direct airflow within this power supply. 

Testing:

The test system consists of the following:

-ThermalTake Aguila Case

-AMD Opteron 165 Dual Core Socket 939 CPU @ 2.9 GHz (1.55v)

-ThermalTake Blue Orb II Heat Sink

-DFI LANParty nF4 Ultra-D

-2GB of Corsair XMS Platinum PC3200 Memory

-320GB x 3 Western Digital 16MB Cache Hard Drives

-nVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS Video Card @ 625MHz Core / 920MHz Memory

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

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

The results are great, all of the voltages are within limits.  During testing, the power supply fan stayed quiet and went to high speed only several times during the test.  The test system remained stable and reliable through testing and daily use. 

"Overall, this power supply offers a tremendous value for anyone looking for a SLI certified, reliable and quiet power supply.  The addition of two 'Fan Only' connectors keep the case fans quiet.  This is a very useful feature to have. There are a few drawbacks, such as the plain grey color and a lack of modular / sleeved cables; but if you have a case without a window and/or airflow is not a problem, this power supply is for you." 

Pros +

-Excellent Power Delivery and Stability

-Quiet 120mm Fan / Quiet Operation

-Cheaper than most power supplies in its class

-'Fan Only' connector for fan speed control

-SLI certified

Cons -

-Plain Grey Color

-Non Sleeved Cabling

-Cables are not modular

Techaddicts.net would like to give this power supply a 8.5 out of 10 rating and the 'Recommended' Award for its excellent value and performance. 

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