Antec EarthWatts Platinum 450W Power Supply Review

Conclusion

Antec’s 450W 80 Plus Platinum EarthWatts power supply retails for about £75-85~ in the UK. We found it listed on Amazon UK for around £85 while CCL had the power supply for £79. Overclockers UK on the other hand had the power supply for just £53.99 which to me seems like it is a little “too good to be true” but that’s the current price at OCUK. In the USA we could only find the 550W unit and that retailed for about $90 so the 450W unit should retail for about $70-80 which confirms the UK pricing of about £75-85. Therefore straight away I think it is obvious this power supply is far from cheap. In fact it is quite obviously expensive compared to what other power supplies with 450 watts cost. That said this unit offers something very unique that they do not, which is 80 Plus Platinum efficiency of 91-93% under typical loads. If we compare that to the Enermax Triathlor 450W we reviewed which was 80 Plus Bronze rated and did 85-87% efficiency then we can see there is about a 5% advantage over Bronze competitors.

The question that this then generates is “should I pay around 60-80% more for a power supply of the same wattage that delivers only around 5% more efficiency than 80 Plus Bronze?” As you might expect the answer isn’t simple because it depends on how often you use your computer and how much power it would use. If you are coming from a relatively inefficient uncertified power supply then you’ll see huge gains by going to this 80 Plus Platinum unit but you’d also see similar magnitude benefits by going to an 80 Plus Bronze power supply. If you’re coming from an 80 Plus Bronze unit then the cost of upgrading, paired with normal usage of say 5-8 hours on your PC a day will never really pay off. Antec’s figures of saving €410 a year used the premise that the computer would be on 24/7, using 100% load (450W) all year round at an electricity cost of €0.23 per kWh. Additionally that figures assumes you were using a 65%~ efficiency PSU. I think it is clear very few people will ever meet such a circumstance but what is clear is that if you are upgrading from old unbranded and uncertified power supplies then you will see a large benefit. Over the year you could save anywhere between £25-250 depending on how often and how intensively you use your PC. Over the course of many years this would definitely save you money. If you are coming from an 80 Plus Bronze or higher rated unit then you’ll probably need a decade to reap your money back even if you use your PC intensively so it really isn’t worth it.

Efficiency and money saving aside the unit itself is very good and we can see the FSP Aurum platform Antec use has a high quality design. We saw strong voltage regulation, PFC and ripple/noise suppression on the unit and it was surprisingly quiet at all load scenarios which impressed me greatly. This is mainly due to the high efficiency which means less heat wastage and thus less work for the fan to do. In terms of what I didn’t like well the non-modular design isn’t ideal for the price, which lets be honest is very high for a 450W unit, and secondly I did not like the relatively weak performance on the minus 12 volt rail though this rail is more or less defunct on modern PCs so can almost be swept aside.

Pros

• Tight core voltage regulation, even under CrossLoad
• Very quiet operation at all loads
• Strong efficiency
• 3 Year warranty

Cons

• Cheap cable braiding that is only partially finished (ends still exposed)
• Weak minus 12 volt performance
• Low PFC at 20% load
• Expensive
• Non-modular

The Bottom Line: “Antec’s EarthWatts Platinum 450W power supply is an interesting unit. It essentially is a budget 450W power supply “shell” with all its internals up-rated to give 80 Plus Platinum efficiency levels. This makes its the ideal choice for anyone who is really conscious about power efficiency and keeping their energy bills down. If you’re looking to do this, and are coming from a relatively inefficient uncertified power supply, then the EarthWatts Platinum 450W is a fantastic choice. Efficiency is key here. If you are happy to settle 5-7% less efficiency, aka 80 Plus Bronze, then we’d definitely recommend looking elsewhere because the Antec EarthWatts 450W is very expensive – you pay a premium for its high efficiency. This by no means makes this a bad power supply because it is very good at everything else too, it is just best at one thing – being efficient. It’s about time someone started offering highly efficient units with lower capacities and I am glad to see Antec stepping up to the mark”

Thank you to Antec for providing this review sample.