1000W-1200W Roundup: Five High-End PSUs
by Martin Kaffei on December 9, 2010 1:20 PM ESTAntec HCP-1200 Noise
| Sound Pressure Level | |
| Load | dB(A) |
| 10% | 18 |
| 20% | 19 |
| 50% | 19 |
| 80% | 24 |
| 100% | 28 |
| 110% | 34 |
Antec is a little bit louder than OCZ at maximum load, but 34dBA is great for an 80mm fan, and it's also very good for a 1200W PSU. The HCP-1200 is virtually silent at anything below 50% load, though it's doubtful the rest of your system will fare as well if you're pulling 600W or more. In this case, Antec delivers better noise than several other competitors despite the use of a higher RPM 80mm fan - a testament to the quality of components and the engineering.
Efficiency and PFC
| 230VAC, 50Hz | ||
| Load | Efficiency | PFC |
| 10% | 86% | 0.885 |
| 20% | 89% | 0.975 |
| 50% | 91% | 0.989 |
| 80% | 91% | 0.989 |
| 100% | 89% | 0.995 |
| 110% | 88% | 0.995 |
| 115VAC, 60Hz | ||
| Load | Efficiency | PFC |
| 10% | 85% | 0.981 |
| 20% | 89% | 0.990 |
| 50% | 90% | 0.999 |
| 80% | 88% | 0.997 |
| 100% | 88% | 0.996 |
| 110% | 87% | 0.996 |
Delivering 85/86% efficiency even at a low 10% load is a great place to start, and it only goes up from there. Nevertheless, we did measure slightly less than ECOS Gold Certification at 50% load; the exact figure was 89.62%, but we rounded up to 90%. That could just be a slight measuring tolerance, but even so Antec could be more efficient. It's still a great PSU overall, but with the cost we wanted to see just a little bit more separation from the competition.
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SirGCal - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
Ditto! I have bought nothing but Corsair powersupplies for quite some time. I got tired of my Antec supplies dieing out on me so I switched to some of the others (Seasonic) but once I found the new (at the time) Corsair's lineup... There was no competition. And generally speaking, I don't buy their ram or other products, but their power supplies are rock solid.Squuiid - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
+1Where's the Corsair?!
aandea - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
+1Where's the Corsair?!
Martin Kaffei - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
Well, we can't test all brands out there, but we've already reviewed the AX 750, which is a very good PSU and this roundup wasn't the last one. I'm sure, Corsair will send more samples, if you are interested.landerf - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
The AX 750 and the AX1200 are hardly comparable. You can't just assume by the model line, especially with corsair. They're not made by the same manufacturer. The AX is considered "god" tier at the moment, so it'd be expected to be in any such comparison.landerf - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
Meant AX1200Havor - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
Still the AX1200 belongs among the tested products as its the only one that is in the same range as the Antec High Current Pro 1200WJerricho24 - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
I also have a few corairs and would have liked to see the AX1200 set along side the enermax Revolution 1250 or Galaxy 1000(that I also have both of)the REAL top end players seem to be missing from 1000W+ review.
Beenthere - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
...it's good to expose that some known and unknown brands have mediocre PSU quality. Now days you need to consider accurate PSU reviews on the specific model PSU you are considering purchasing as the quality and performance can vary drastically from one PSU model to another of the same brand.SirGCal - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
Even the Corsair CMPSU-1000HX or CMPSU-950TX would have been interesting in the mix. Let alone the AX1200 monster.But still, the majority of users who aren't running tripple SLI won't need anything more than a 600-900W unit depending. It would be more interesting to see a good comparison of say the ~750W range. That'll hold most systems even with two GPUs in many cases. But no problem at all with any single GPU as the majority of users run.