Starting in the 330 Watt range, Antec knows that system configurations have grown and that present day computers are very demanding. The Flagship TruePower is available in a 550 Watt supply which should be more than enough to power any home-built enthusiast PC. In addition to the now normal power-user configuration of multiple hard drives, separate CD-ROM/DVD reader and writers and multi-function panels, Case Mods have become incredibly popular. While Cold Cathode lights do not draw an absorbent amount of power, it is an additional load which must be considered.

     Testing the unit was accomplished in a IN-USE fashion. Using Motherboard Monitor to monitor and record the various voltage levels of the motherboard, the PC was put through a series of benchmarks and stress tests for approximately 45 minutes. A Lian Li PC86 enclosure is utilized using two PanaFlow 50 CFM fans for air intake, and a Sunon 50 CFM fan for exhaust. The motherboard is a MSI KT-3 Ultra ARU with an AMD Athlon-XP 2200+ CPU being cooled by an Arkua -7228 heatsink/fan unit.

     With the three fans connected to the "Fan Only" power leads of the TruePower 480, upon boot-up there was a very noticeable decrease in the amount of noise generated by the fans. As the test progressed and the enclosures internal temperature raised, the fan speeds automatically increased, but only slightly. As we can see from the chart above, allowing the TruePower to regulate the fans using the "Fan Only" power header will have a dramatic influence on your temperatures. A Standard configuration would be connecting the case fans to a normal 4-pin power source. This runs the fans at their maximum potential moving the most amount of air, but at the cost of a higher noise level.

     Such a drastic spread between maximum temperatures isn't really surprising considering how much the case fans have been throttled back. These higher temperatures are still well within operational parameters, but are the obvious trade off for lower system noise. Likewise,  voltage levels on all reported channels stay very well within operational limits. There is a less than 2% margin from the set-point voltage and the actual voltage on all of the positive voltage supply lines.

     Antec has elaborately given system builders more options in a power supply, being available in a wide range of capacities and conforming the ATX standard with the required supply lines for the Pentium-4. Whether or not you utilize the "Fan Only" option, this is a very clever addition and should not be overlooked. Especially if you are in the group of people who claim your system sounds like a jet engine at boot-up. All of the power leads are quite long and should be able to reach all system components, even in a full tower enclosure.