Caporegime
OcUK Product page - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-182-AN&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1088
Antec Home Page - http://www.antec.com/product.php?id=705833&fid=357
Packaging.
Four 12V rails with 40A a piece.
Some calculations showing how a higher efficiency can help save you money on your electricity bill.
That is about it, I mean it is just a box so there is not much to see.
Contents and Accessories.
So inside you get a warranty booklet. This PSU carries a strong 7 year warranty.
A user manual.
The PSU body and cables in cloth bags.
Fitting screws and two Velcro ties.
Cables.
I have seen better braiding before but the stealth wires (darkened wires with thin coloured stripe) help to make a black looking cable.
Everything is suitably dark and stealthy.
When I attached the cables to my test system I did notice that they were a bit stiff and a bit difficult to bend in to the power sockets.
PSU Body.
Nice to see Antec moved away from the dark blue of their HCP 850W.
Pretty good looking.
The motherboard cable plugs into the bigger socket but also has a second connector that you plug into any half of the 16pin sockets. You can fit any of the 8pin cables (PCI-E and ATX/EPS) into any half of the 16pin sockets to spread the load across the four rails.
The peripheral cables (SATA and Molex) plug into voltage rail 1.
The OC link and supplied cable allow you to link another OC Link equipped PSU with it so they switch ON at the same time should you need a tremendous amount of power.
Fan noise.
Below is a video I have made recording the PSU fan noise during normal operation and stress testing.
Unscientific testing.
I used Gigabyte System Information Viewer to display the voltages from the PSU. Below are the results.
Thoughts.
I have no proper way of testing a PSU but I can tell this unit is a beast just from the construction and reviews at other sites such as JonnyGuru.
It is extremely quiet, but then again I am not even getting to half of its rated output with my test system.
I have a power meter that plugs into a wall socket to measure power draw and I actually noticed a 20Watt increase in power consumption (During Furmark testing) when compared to my HCP 850W, this will be because I am now well under the 40-50% load sweet spot that PSU's like to run at for maximum efficiency where as before I would have been around that sweet spot with my HCP 850W PSU so efficiency will have been better.
This is a serious PSU with masses of power for people who have overclocked multi GPU systems.
Expensive! but a great 7 year warranty certainly gives piece of mind.
*Thanks to Ethermaster for the banner.