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Antec Sonata III Review
Installation »The Power Supply
The power supply inside the case is the Antec EarthWatts 500W. This is their highest rated power supply in the EarthWatts lineup and is an 80+ high efficiency power supply also available for seperate purchase. The PSU is SLI/Crossfire capable and features dual rails. The current price of this power supply is above 70€, which makes the 40€ extra for the PSU & case combination a great value. You can read up on the details on Antec's website here.
Antec EarthWatts EA-500 500W | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AC Input | 115V/230V 10A/6A 60/50Hz | |||||||
| DC Voltage | +3.3V | +5V | +12V1 | +12V2 | -12V | +5VSB | ||
| Max. Output | 24A | 24A | 17A | 17A | 0.8A | 2.5A | ||
| 130 W | 408 W | NA | NA | |||||
As you can see, it is a dual rail power supply, with 17A on each rail. That is just 1A short of the maximum allowed by specification for each 12V rail. It should be able to power a fairly capable system, even two 8800 GTS graphic cards.
The power supply has the following connectors:
| Connectors | Main Power | 5.25" | Floppy | 4 Pin CPU | 8 Pin CPU | SerialATA | PCI-E Aux Power |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATX 20+4 Pin | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 |
The EarthWatts 500W is not only SLI/Crossfire capable, but also features an 8 pin CPU power connector for quad core based systems. You will also find a good mix of Molex and SATA connectors. A single floppy power plug should suffice for most systems, but two would have been perfect.
The cable length of the individual power lines is quite sufficient for a normal sized ATX case, but you may run into some trouble if you plan to use the EarthWatts 500W inside a big tower.