This Just In: Antec TruePower Quattro 1200W PSU
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 25, 2010 8:44 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
I'm trying my hands at a new feature here on AnandTech called This Just In.The idea is simple: when something that's not under NDA shows up at my doorstep, I'll snap some pics and post it for you all to see. Something to gawk at while whatever it is I'm working on gets reviewed. It'll give you a glimpse into what I'm working on and at the same time, it'll make sure I take photos of the product early in the review process rather than waiting until 2AM the morning the review goes live.
I'll start off with something that we're not necessarily reviewing, but something that will be used in a couple of upcoming reviews. As you may have heard, NVIDIA is launching a brand new pair of graphics cards tomorrow: the GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470. In preparation for tomorrow's review we needed to update our GPU testbed power supply, in case a pair of these cards ended up pushing the limits of our existing 850W PSU. So we asked around for something a bit beefier. That's not to say that we needed it, but we wanted to be safe just in case.
Antec was kind enough to set us up with one of its best - the TruePower Quattro 1200:
An 80 Plus Silver rated 1200W power supply, this thing should be more than enough to handle a pair of any single GPU graphics cards on the market. And thus far in our testing, it has been.
The 80 Plus Silver rating means that at 20% and 100% load the PSU is guaranteed to be 85% efficient, and at 50% load it'll be 88% efficient. Higher efficiencies keep heat and power costs down, which is always a good thing. Below 20% the efficiency drops off and thus this won't be a great PSU for lower end systems. Most of our testbeds idle at 50 - 150W which is less than 13% of the PSU's load capacity. This thing is built for the very large, very power hungry desktops and workstations.
The PSU ships with both permanent and modular cables. A pair of PCIe cables (each with 6-pin and 6+2-pin) are attached, and you get another modular pair as well. The ATX and ATX/EPS 12V connectors are obviously permanently connected, as are single strands of molex and SATA connectors. The rest are bundled modular cables.
Swapping graphics cards can be a bit cumbersome thanks to the large capacitors at the end of the PCIe power cables, and idle power of our GPU testbed is higher with the 1200W unit thanks to the low idle of most modern day GPUs/CPUs, but so far it has been performing well in our tests.
You'll see exactly what it's been powering in about 24 hours.
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MadMan007 - Thursday, March 25, 2010 - link
It's poor design, or at least lame design, to not fit the filter caps inside the case. And then it gets marketed as something special - 'PowerCache.' I pray that other companies don't pick up on this b.s., I don't want crap like this that should be inside the PSU on the cables instead just making assembly more of a pain.Calin - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
I don't know if they are really needed - but if they're needed, the perfect position is just before the place where power is consumed.That's why you saw power filtering capacitors near the CPU socket when the CPU coolers were small
Are they really needed? Graphic cards do have their own power modulation system and power filtering capacitors near the GPU chip... so this might help just for getting that 140% to 142% performance.
jkostans - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
Correct, they are in the best position. Putting caps that close eliminates most of the cable inductance which can cause voltage overshoot/undershoot during fast transitions from low current to high current and vice-versa. With the amount of power video cards are drawing these days this is becoming more and more important. This is not power filtering but rather ensuring there is an ample amount of energy stored near the card for quick power increases/decreases. It's amazing how much ringing you get in a cable that's only 6-12in long when 20+ amps are thrown around.oc3an - Thursday, March 25, 2010 - link
I agree. They look like ferrites.However they truly are capacitors. :)
Makes no sense to have ferrites there anyway.
-Patrick
GeorgeH - Thursday, March 25, 2010 - link
"in case ... that's not to say ... in case"Is NVIDIA's NDA Hit Squad really that scary? With a little more "badda-boom" and "youse guys" we'd have a Sopranos episode here. ;)
annihilat0r - Thursday, March 25, 2010 - link
850w not enough for Enrico Fermi Thermonuclear Meltdown?landerf - Thursday, March 25, 2010 - link
I'd be interested in seeing that pitted against the ABS Majesty 1100w, with the 80+ Gold rating. They're about the same price.simontay1984 - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Just to let you know Anand, there are a lot of spam comments above that somehow got through the filter, you should delete them. I hate it as much as the next person, especially when it has nothing to do with the article!