The PSU is cooled with an Adda AD1212HB-A71GL fan (120x120x25mm, 2200rpm). The impeller is made from translucent plastic to look better when highlighted by the LEDs. A small part of the fan is covered with a plastic film that drives the air towards the back part of the PSU.
The PSU’s max output power is declared to be 650W at an air temperature of 50°C just as the industry standard requires. The +12V rail, split into three “virtual” lines, can yield a combined current of 52A.
The PSU is equipped with the following cables and connectors:
- Mainboard cable with a 20+4-pin connector (46cm)
- CPU cable with a 4-pin connector (49cm)
- CPU cable with an 8-pin connector (49cm)
- Graphics card cable with a 6+2-pin connector (49cm)
- Five connectors for other cables
Included with the PSU are:
- One graphics card cable with a 6-pin connector (59cm)
- Two cables with three Molex connectors on each (47+15+15cm)
- Two cables with two SATA connectors on each (62+14cm)
- Adapter from one Molex into two floppy-drive plugs
The cables of the NeoHE 650 Blue imply that this PSU is intended for systems with advanced graphics cards: one graphics card cable is non-detachable. Well, my measurements show that a 650W PSU should be just fine even for a system with two graphics cards. If you’ve got only one, a lower-wattage PSU would be a more reasonable choice.
Together with an APC SmartUPS SC 620 the power supply worked at loads up to 370W (from both the mains and the battery). It also passed the full-load test easily.
The output voltage ripple is within the permissible limits at full load.
Like the previous two models, the NeoHE 650 Blue features dedicated voltage regulation and its cross-load diagram looks good. You can note that the voltages on the +5V and +3.3V rails sag by 4-5% when these rails are under high load but my “reference” configuration with four HDDs is far from the red zone. As a matter of fact, this PSU offers a triple reserve of power for my reference configuration including a Core 2 Duo E6850, one Radeon HD 3870 graphics card, and four WD Raptor hard disks!
The PSU is actually silent at loads below 200W as the fan is rotating at a speed of only 600rpm. After that, the speed is growing up proportionally to the load, reaching 1200rpm at about 380W.
Comparing the NeoHE 650 Blue with the NeoHE 550 and TruePower Trio 550, the 650W model is somewhat better in terms of noisiness, yet most users won’t even notice it. On the whole, this PSU is no record-breaker in quietness, yet is very, very good in practice especially as it is silent at low loads, i.e. when the PC is idle and the fans on the CPU and graphics card slow down to minimum speed.
The efficiency is as high as 86%, lowering at very high loads. The power factor is very good, too. It almost equals 1. The quality of the PFC device was obvious from the excellent result the PSU showed in the UPS compatibility test.
So, the Antec NeoPower NeoHE 650 Blue is undoubtedly a very good product with superb electrical and acoustic parameters, with detachable cables and blue highlighting of the fan which may come in handy for owners of the Antec Nine Hundred system case, for example. But with all that praise about this 650W PSU I can’t but tell you once again that this output power may only be adequate for a configuration with two top-end graphics cards and an advanced CPU. Purchasing it for a weaker configuration wouldn’t make sense because there is no practical benefit from having such a huge reserve of power in a system with one graphics card.
Conclusion
It’s easy to make a conclusion to this roundup. It goes like this: Antec power supplies are good!
To be specific, the 7 models, including the nonstandard AR-350, all have good electrical parameters, low level of noise, and an adequate selection of cables and connectors. I haven’t found a serious flaw in any of them. The Basiq 500 may look rather unassuming compared with the other models, but it belongs to the most inexpensive series after all.
