SPCR

DriverHeaven.net has an Interview with Scott Richards, Antec Senior VP. He mainly talks about power supplies (but not about Antec's new "Signature" series), and cases to a lesser extent. A quick but worthwhile read.

DH: The signature series receives an 80 Plus certification, meaning efficiency stays above 80% at 20-100% load. It’s common knowledge a high efficiency power supply unit requires less cooling as less power is wasted and turns to heat, however we also understand that the unit has to remain cool enough under the entire load range to achieve a >80% efficiency. As a very large percentage of enthusiasts dislike noise, a noisy unit would not be in their shortlist no matter how well it could perform. Can you please describe the basic parts of its cooling system and comment on the expected noise levels of the Signature units?

Scott: Stay tuned.

Thanks for the link HueyCobra.

I think Antec still has some egg on their face from the NeoHE fiasco so the "hand testing" of each Signature PSU is probably a good idea.

Anyway, I look forward to some more info on the Signature Series.

Goldmember wrote:Thanks for the link HueyCobra.

Hi Goldmember, good to see you again & no worries.

Goldmember wrote:Anyway, I look forward to some more info on the Signature Series.

Me too - that was the first I'd heard of it

HueyCobra wrote:

Goldmember wrote:Thanks for the link HueyCobra.

Hi Goldmember, good to see you again & no worries.

Goldmember wrote:Anyway, I look forward to some more info on the Signature Series.

Me too - that was the first I'd heard of it

Makes me wonder what the signature series has over the earthwatts? Modular? Flashy Design? Better components inside maybe?

merlin wrote:Makes me wonder what the signature series has over the earthwatts? Modular? Flashy Design? Better components inside maybe?

I'm thinking/speculating that the Signature series will be a little higher-end over the Earthwatts with higher efficiency, quieter fan, and better quality components (solid caps, digital everything etc.) and 1 huge 12 volt rail. Did I mention expensive?

The article mentioned something about hybrid-modular so that is possible. Of course, if they want the highest efficiency then they will have to hard-wire everything.

We'll see!

P.S. Don't forget that Corsair might be updating the HX series soon.

HueyCobra wrote:Hi Goldmember, good to see you again & no worries.

Good to see you also. I really love Australia!

A big national and local news story in the US yesterday was that kangaroo that decided to hop along the race track in New South Wales. Glad the little fella made it!

Goldmember wrote:I really love Australia!

/ sings national anthem

Scott Richards interview at NordicHardware.

Scott Richards wrote:[Silent power supplies] was always a niche market. The Phantoms never amounted to more than 1% of our total power supply sales. Today’s active cooled power supplies are, in any event, very quiet and we’ll be introducing a line soon that will be our quietest ever.

Scott Richards wrote:We will officially announce the Signature Series at CES in January. The first two models will be a 650 and 850 Watt units. This series will have several new innovations to make it stable and quiet and will be designed and built to the highest standards. Innovations will include use of DC to DC voltage regulation modules for the step down voltages, PWM fan controller and much else.

Scott Richards wrote:As long as the GPU companies keep pushing for more power and, of course, the CPU’s are ramping up again with quad core and other technologies, plus the increased demand for storage, servers, etc, in the digital media age, I don’t see the demands for power going down. But I’m sure you will see more specialization, so there will also be power sipping PC’s out there as well as power hungry models. The drive for more efficient PSU’s will also definitely continue. We’ll get there in incremental steps. 90% is still sometime away. Let’s get to 85% first.