Antec TruePower Quattro 1200W
by Jarred Walton on July 7, 2010 6:50 PM ESTAntec TruePower Quattro 1200W Conclusion
With the TruePower Quattro 1200W, Antec can’t reach the highest efficiency ever and some buyers probably won’t like the cable configuration with many fixed cables like the two peripheral harnesses. It lacks the sort of cable management many like, because there is no space for a bigger connector panel.
However, Antec delivers one of the best results for temperatures with a delta (t) of not more than 8° and a nice voltage regulation with a clean output. At 10% load +5V shows exactly 5.00V and doesn’t drop too much with more amps on it. +12V is also nice. Only +3.3V could be regulated better with a result of -3.64% at 110% load. Power Factor was amazing and reached more than 0.99 even at 230VAC. 88.67% efficiency is the result at 50% load and 120VAC, which is slightly worse than the Seasonic X-series from our previous test but not enough that we'd really worry.
The ripple and noise results are nice too. There is not more than 30-35 mV on each rail and all measurements are well within the ATX specification. If you buy this PSU, however, you should stay below 80% load, because the fan gets really loud after that. Otherwise the TruePower Quattro is very silent below 50% load and if you play games or listen to music, noise should not be a problem. Considering the sort of components you'll need to reach 80% load (960W output), you'd probably already have plenty of noise coming from your PC anyway.
The internal design is dominated by two very large heatsinks and Japanese capacitors from Nippon Chemi-Con and Sanyo. Antec is using many shrink tubes as well as foils for short circuit protection and has a good Silicon Touch IC with many safety functions. The EMI filtering is well equipped with an additional MOV behind the entrance. There is not much space for cooling in the secondary circuit but the ventilation is strong enough to solve this problem.
Eight PCIe connectors are more than enough for a triple-SLI setup as well as many peripheral connectors for up to 20 hard drives. All the cables are very long, like the main cable at 65cm. So this PSU is designed for full size towers, a common choice for high-end computer systems with multiple GPUs.
Pricing is actually quite reasonable for this sort of PSU. The standard model starts at $215 online. If you want to buy the OC model you have to pay much more and it is only a solution for extreme overclocking. We couldn't find any in stock, but it looks like prices will be north of $335. For those that need a beastly 1200W PSU, we can say that the Antec TruePower Quattro 1200W is a good choice and sets a high quality standard. If you can live with the limited cable management and you're planning to run a tri-SLI or dual HD 5970 cards, this should work just fine.
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bobbozzo - Friday, July 9, 2010 - link
Most houses in the US have 20A circuits, but 15A outlets.Klinky1984 - Saturday, July 10, 2010 - link
A lot of people buying this probably don't need 1200 watts. There is some prestige to having a 1.2kW PSU, but what kind of system is really going to stress this power supply? Maybe if you got one of those 7x PCIe x16 motherboards and created a GPU distributed computing number cruncher, perhaps. But I'd think a more typical tri-SLI setup would have problems pushing 50% usage on this thing.Klinky1984 - Saturday, July 10, 2010 - link
Well, perhaps I underestimated the power-fatty Fermi is.cactusdog - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
This doesnt appeal, there are much better options out there with truly silent 140mm fans. Most new high end PSUs are going back to a single rail too.HOOfan 1 - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
>most new high end PSUs are going back to single railI wouldn't say that at all....some companies want single rail, but I think MOST is a serious exaggeration.
Why does it matter anyway?
Stuka87 - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
If you buy a cheap supply, its going to be cheap. Regardless of the brand. I have a mid-range Antec and I have been very happy with it. Its quiet, and it weighs about 3x more than the cheaper PSU it replaced.doctormonroe - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
I'm not a big fan of having less than a 120mm fan, but the reviewer covered it when he said that you'd hear the rest of the system before a 1200W PSU under load.I'm glad that you've stopped using the charts that were in previous articles (as they were not easy to read and comprehend), but good charts are much better than tables, so hopefully soon you'll figure out a good chart to use.
HOOfan 1 - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
Yeah...that happens. It happens with anything...especially with electronics.What model was it? If it was REALLY one of their halo products, I am not sure how you came to the conclusion that it was built cheaply.
Of course you have some people who think the PSU is such a simple design and that there is no excuse for a well built PSU to fail. People like that just make me roll my eyes...and usually ignore them from then on.
Martimus - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
Antec used to have a reputation for using low temperature Caps that would fail at actual operating temperatures over time. I had assumed that they stopped doing this, but it is possible that they still use this practice.TGressus - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
In general the more popular ODMs will have a portfolio of designs. Some better than others. In my experience this is where some of the vendors get away with shady practices. Entry level components get hidden within a shiny exterior, marketed as something they are not and no one is the wiser.I'd like to see the status quo among reviewers/enthusiasts change to focus on relative comparison, and historical performance of the ODM models inside PSUs. As it stands now we tend to focus on a visual inspection, and essentially a second wave of manufacturer QC testing.
When we discuss SSD or GPU we consider the chipset first, and the brand second. This enables the community to make better informed decisions, and allows us to steer trends in product development, rather than the vendor hooride that is the PSU market.