Introduction
With energy efficiency becoming more and more important to consumers it was only a matter of time before 80 Plus Platinum was made available in low-wattage power supplies for relatively affordable price points. Currently we see 80 Plus Platinum reserved for high end power supply units like Enermax’s Platimax series and Corsair’s AX1200i among others. Yet today we have with us an 80 Plus Platinum rated power supply from Antec in a modest 450W capacity for users who care about energy efficiency and only have a modest system to power. The Antec EarthWatts Platinum 450W power supply we have here today fills exactly that market segment.
The focus of Antec’s EarthWatts Platinum series is really quite simple, they want to offer you 80 Plus Platinum rated power supplies that are more affordable because they come in more realistic wattages for “normal” systems. In fact 450W is more than enough power for any high-end system. You could easily run a single high end GPU and high end CPU platform off this power supply, such as an Core i7 3960X with a moderate OC and an Nvidia GTX 780. Of course the typical user of this power supply is more likely to have an LGA 115X platform and less demanding GPU but the point still remains – 450W is enough for most people making this a very accessible and applicable power supply.
Antec’s promotion of this product pulls a load of questionable figures out of the air in terms of how much money you could typically save. Realistically the amount of money you can save is going to vary wildly on three factors:
- Your unit cost of electricity
- How efficient your previous power supply was
- How often you use your PC and related to that how much electricity it consumes when you use it
So as we proceed through this review it is worth taking a note that the focus is very much on efficiency, so without any further ado let us get straight on with this review.
For a platinum rated PSU I am not sure it can really be classed as expensive as there is nothing to compare it to…
I really don’t put much stock in the various 80+ ratings. Sure they can save you a bob or two over a few years but the certification is all about marketing. The upside is, as Ryan aptly alludes to is that they generally use better components which in turn leads to better reliability & longevity but the question remains, are they worth the price premium? I guess that depends on the purchaser. Let’s see what the new 80+ Titanium brings to the table but you can rest assured it won’t be easy affordability.