Antec Earthwatts EA 650 review

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Verdict:

Review Date: 13 Oct 2008

Price when reviewed: £52

Supplier: http://www.tekheads.co.uk

Reviewed By: James Gorbold

Our Rating 5 stars out of 5

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Review
Specs

Antec's Earthwatts EA 650 is the cheapest PSU in the group, and has a claimed output of 650W. The Earthwatts brand is meant to be very power- efficient, and in our tests it was in the middle of the group with 83 per cent efficiency.

The EA 650 is cooled by a 120mm fan, which is quiet at low loads, but noisy at full load. It has three 12V rails: the first two supply up to 22A, and the third 25A. All the cables are wired into the PSU, providing six Molex and SATA plugs, plus a six-pin PCI Express and a six-plus-two-pin PCI Express plug. The EA 650 is only SLI-certified for older graphics card configurations, although it's CrossFire-certified for a single Radeon HD 4870 X2. Outputs from all the rails were within the ATX specification at all loads.

The EA 650 isn't the quietest in the group, but has lots of connections and provides 650W of stable power for just over £50. It's our Budget Buy.

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