Antec EDGE 550W Power Supply Review
by E. Fylladitakis on October 3, 2014 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Antec
- 550W
- Edge
Introduction
Even though there are plenty of >1kW consumer power supply units available today, it is well known that these represent a very small portion of the actual market, as the power requirements of a typical home or office PC are far lower than that. After reviewing several top-tier products, such as the efficient Seasonic Platinum 1200XP3 and the ruthless Corsair AX1500i, today we will have a look at something a lot more sensible and appealing to the average user. In this review we examine the newest PSU series from Antec, the EDGE.
Antec is a company that has always been focused on efficient and practical products rather than developing numerous high output units. They do have one 1.3kW high performance PSU available but that's about it; the bulk of their PSU products exist in the 550W to 750W power range. This is the exact range of the newest EDGE series as well, which consists of three units starting at 550W and going up to 750W. We're looking at the least powerful model today, which still has ample power for the vast majority of home users and casual gamers.
Power Specifications ( Rated @ 50 °C ) | |||||
AC INPUT | 100 - 240 VAC, 50 - 60 Hz | ||||
RAIL | +3.3V | +5V | +12V | +5Vsb | -12V |
MAX OUTPUT | 20A | 20A | 45A | 2.5A | 0.3A |
100W | 540W | 12.5W | 3.6W | ||
TOTAL | 550W |
Packaging and Bundle
We received the Antec EDGE 550W in a colorful cardboard box that clearly specifies the focus of the PSU: silence. The box is large and strong enough to adequately protect the unit during transport. For those that are shelf-browsing, the most important features are printed on the front and sides of the box, while details can be found on the rear side.
Antec kept the bundle relatively simple. Inside the box is an AC power cable, four mounting screws, a small leaflet with basic information about the unit, a very simple pouch, and anti-vibration dampers. It is noteworthy that Antec supplies two sets of dampers, one red and one black, allowing the user to select between an aggressive or subtle appearance.
The EDGE series is fully modular and the cables are all supplied in a nylon bag. Only the few pictured cables accompany the 550W model, effectively limiting the user to just one GPU as there are only two 6+2 PCI Express connectors available. On the other hand, there are eight SATA connectors, which is quite a lot for a 550W model. With the exception of the ATX 24 pin connector cable, all of the cables are black, flat, ribbon-like cables. The 24-pin cable also makes use of all-black wires but they are covered with a normal black sleeving instead.
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Daniel Egger - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
> For non gaming rigs, it's more like 40-70w just browsing the web & using office, 100w max full video encoding, etc, and that could easily run off a Pico-PSU laptop style power brick.In fact HP and and a few other companies are selling not only all-in-ones but also mini-tower PCs which are powered by external 19V power bricks. I ordered one of those a couple of months back for a family member. Sure there's no discrete GPU in that but it still offers quite a bit of bang and is perfectly capable of handling any typical office activities and even light gaming. I couldn't make it draw more than 70W at the wall.
KAlmquist - Sunday, October 5, 2014 - link
Referring to 28 watts out of the power supply, and 37 watts measured at the wall, the reviewer writes that "most systems will be closer to twice that power draw at idle." So I'd like to underline the fact that you are measuring 37 watts at the wall idle even with a GPU.Morawka - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
whats wrong with all the images on this site? they are all broken. Same with daily tech. (reset your cache, you'll see.missing on both my iphone and desktop.
TelstarTOS - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
I've seen this 5V regulation issue on another PSU, I believe Seasonic's own latest G-series. I dont like it but it's within specs anyway.bhima - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Hrmm... $120 is a steep price to pay for silence on a component that is typically the least offender as far as noise in concerned (ie: Case, CPU fan and GPU are the big noise makers).