Antec TrueControl 550W PSU review
The two fans
Like I previously said this unit has two fans, a 80mm one and a 92mm one. With the TrueControl bay device you can change the minimum RPM speed of these fans. Here are the specifications of these fans:
| Fan |
CFM
|
dBA@1M
|
RPM
|
Current
|
| DF1208BA 80x25 mm |
39.0
|
34
|
2900
|
0.20A
|
| DF1209BA 92x25 mm |
57.1
|
35.8
|
3000
|
0.25A
|
On the minimum RPM speed you can barely hear them, and when you turn them to maximum speed it is like "What I can't hear you?". Very loud thus.
Test system Specifications :
Intel Pentium 4 2.8C (800MHz FSB)
AOpen AX4SG Max motherboard (Springdale 865G chipset)
2x Corsair XMS3500C2 256MB RAM (running at Dual Channel DDR400 @ 2-6-3-3 @ 2.60V)
MSI GeForce 4 Ti4200 with 128MB RAM 3D Card
Maxtor 120GB SATA Hard Disk (6Y120M0)
Antec 550W TrueControl PSU
OS : Windows XP with SP1
Voltage Testing
Now we are going to test the voltage output of the 3.3V, 5V, and 12V line of this power supply.
* For the 5V and 12V lines we used a multimeter from Fluke (Fluke Multimeter 75). We used a multimeter because readouts from the motherboard are mostly inaccurate and incorrect.
* There is no good testing method for the 3.3V except depending on the motherboard readout, so the 3.3V line was monitored with Speedfan.
* Idle conditions were with the test system running idle in WinXP for about 5 minutes.
* Load conditions were done with folding@home and Prime95 torture test running for 10minutes.
Because you are able to adjust the voltage lines of this PSU very easely we decided to check the minimum and maximum voltage we were able to get during idle and load.
| Voltage testing of the Antec TrueControl 550W PSU | ||||
| Idle | Load | Difference | ||
| 12V | min | 11.65V | 11.63V | 0.02V |
| max | 12.36V | 12.34V | 0.02V | |
| 5V | min | 4.88V | 4.88V | 0.00V |
| max | 5.19V | 5.19V | 0.00V | |
| 3.3V | min | 3.06V | 3.04V | 0.02V |
| max | 3.28V | 3.26V | 0.02V | |
|
Voltage Adjustment Range during load |
||||
| Voltage Line | Min. Voltage | Variation of min V. | Max Voltage | Variation of max V. |
| +12VDC | 11.63V | 3.18% | 12.34V | 2.83% |
| +3.3VDC | 3.04V | 8.55% | 3.26V | -1.23% |
| +5VDC | 4.88V | 2.46% | 5.19V | 3.8% |
Like you can see this power supply really does a superb job. All voltages stayed within the ATX voltage specification, and at anytime you can adjust them from the front of your PC. The test also shows that this is a very stable PSU, the voltages between idle and load almost gave no difference! (only 0.02V on some voltage lines).
The Voltage Adjustment Range from this test is smaller however than the one that Antec gave in their specifications of this PSU, but still nice. Only the 3.3V line is a little bit on the low side, but this one has been read out from the motherboard so I'm not 100% sure that it is correct. During idle the 5V line for example shows 5.13V maximum in Speedfan , and the 12V line shows 12.22V, so most likely the 3.3 voltage is also too low.
Conclusion
This is the very first power supply that allows you to change the voltage output from your PSU, without voiding your warranty. Either you need this or not you need to decide yourself, but it is really easy with the TrueControl bay device, and it also allows you to change the minimum RPM speed of the PSU fans.
The voltages of this PSU are also very nice, and very stable, the difference between idle and load is almost nil.
Maybe an idea for Antec to make the TrueControl bay device a little bit more useful, by adding voltage readout LCDs for the 12V, 5V and 3.3V line? So you can see in real-time the voltage changes right from the front of your pc. Maybe something for a special edition of the TrueControl 550? :P
Price in America is $126.00 over at Newegg, $123.95 over at Digital Unique.
Edit/Update : Thanks to Jim from MHW for pointing this out! This PSU is actually not the first one that allows you to change the voltage without voiding the warranty. PC Power and Cooling offers a power supply which also allows this. A review of this PSU can be found here
The Good Stuff
- Very stable voltage lines
- The ability to change voltage lines output from the front of your PC!
- Speed (and noise) of PSU fans can be changed from the front of your PC.
- Many connectors and long cables
- Dedicated voltage circuits
- Very quiet (if on minimum RPM speed)
- Very powerful.
- Black Molex connectors look nicer than white ones.
The Bad stuff/things that could be better
- Voltage Adjustment Range is smaller than the one Antec gave in their specs.
- No SATA cables
- Cables are very long, and can cause cable clutter in some cases.
- Relative high price, but you get high quality.
Previous Page (4/5)Added: August 12th 2003
Product reviewed: Antec TrueControl 550W PSU
Reviewer: LSDsmurf
Score: 10/10
Page: 5/5