Antec HCP-1300 Platinum
All PSUs in this test have one thing in common: They are the flagship models of their respective manufacturers. The 1300 W Antec High Current Pro is no exception – no Antec power supply offers more watts. Its efficiency is top notch, too: It is adorned with an 80 Plus Platinum logo. Its power and its price position it in the middle of our test field. In late 2013, we tested its 850 W, Platinum-grade brother, which we liked. Perhaps Antec could have added a hybrid fan control – the 1300 W model doesn’t have it, either, but it does offer 50% more power at identical efficiency. Both models sport four 12 V rails, and you can draw up to 50 A from each of the 1300 W supply’s rails, as long as the maximum power is not exceeded. The 850 W model topped out at 40 A per rail. The high-end model provides a whopping ten 6+2 pin PCIe power cables, sufficient for five high-end graphics cards – Altcoin miners, make a note of it. In addition to that, there are two CPU connectors, nine SATA plugs, and six Molex jacks. If you need more than 1300 W, you can link two of the PSUs with the OC Link, and achieve a staggering 2600 W. It is no surprise that a high-end PSU like this sports fully modular cables, all of which are sleeved. All cable strands are black. Considering the number of cables, the cable lengths seem merely adequate – they are all in the 22” to 26” range. The workmanship is impeccable and high-end materials were used.
| AC Input | 110-240V, 50-60 Hz | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DC Output | +3.3V | +5V | +12V (#1) | +12V (#2) | +12V (#3) | +12V (#4) | -12V | +5Vsb |
| 25 A | 25 A | 50 A | 50 A | 50 A | 50 A | 0.5 A | 3 A | |
| Individual Output | Row 2 - Cell 1 | Row 2 - Cell 2 | Row 2 - Cell 3 | Row 2 - Cell 4 | Row 2 - Cell 5 | 6 W | 15 W | |
| Rail Utilization | Sys | Sys | CPU & VGA | |||||
| Combined Output | 130 W | 1300 W | ||||||
| Total Continuous Output | 1300 W | |||||||
| Peak Output | 1500 W |
Efficiency According to the 80 PLUS Spec
Efficiency for Typical Use Cases
Alas, the Antec HCP-1300 stumbles during the very first round of our lab tests – it simply doesn’t reach the 89 percent efficiency demanded by the 80 Plus Platinum standard. At full load, it tops out at 87.5 percent. We obtained a second PSU sample, but the picture didn’t change, and this discrepancy can’t be attributed to measurement tolerances, either. Even at medium load, the PSU misses the 92 percent goal – however, 91.8 percent efficiency is good enough for us. At 20 percent load, the PSU passes the test. For this test, we also measured the efficiency of all five PSUs at 10 percent load, something which is only required for the Titanium logo. Here, the Antec model achieves 87.7 percent, and at 50 W load its efficiency is a mere 75.6 percent – however, these high-end PSUs are intended for higher loads anyway.
While the Antec PSU’s 22 ms hold-up time is decent, it is only good enough for the second-to-last place in this test field of high-end PSUs – three other high-end PSUs are even better. At a mere 1.28 W, the Antec supply sports the lowest stand-by power draw, but the four other supplies consume barely more power. When we measured ripple and noise, the curves looked very nice on the oscilloscope screen, and the ripple voltages are way below the thresholds.
When it comes to fan noise, the Antec HCP-1300 manages to impress: While its fan is always on, the fan’s sound level only comes in at a low 30.7 dB(A) at all three load ranges (40, 200, and 600 W).
A Closer Look at the PCB
All Antec PSUs are manufactured by Delta, one of the best power supply manufacturers. Unsurprisingly for a high-end PSU, it sports a very modern design with full bridge topology, LLC converter, and DC-DC technology. Only high-end components are used – for instance, the capacitors are from Japan-based RubyCon and Nippon Chemi-Con. While the soldering quality is high, we have seen even better quality from Delta.
