The Power Supplies:
The Antec P190 comes standard with not just one, but two power supplies, which Antec call the ‘Neo-Link 1200’. One is a 650W unit which is responsible for powering the motherboard and PCI-Express cards, and the second is a 550W unit which takes care of everything else (hard drives, fans etc...). It must be noted that these are not standard ATX units, as each one can only do half the job of a normal Power supply, i.e. the 550W unit does not have motherboard power connectors at all, and the 650W unit has no Molex or SATA power connectors.
So it’s not a redundant setup in any way at all, and if one of the units were to fail you would have to remove both units to put in a standard ATX PSU until the faulty one get repaired or replaced, as one cannot function without the other, or in conjunction with a standard unit. There is a bridging cable between the two units unique to these power supplies, and without this cable, the second unit would not get the signal to power up, so you’d have your motherboard running, but no power to your drives.
Each power supply has its own power switch at the rear, and I can just see someone turning on one unit and not the other and ringing up a support line to complain their drives aren’t powering up, anyone who has worked at some level of tech support would know that someone will do this without a doubt. As these units can’t function without each other, it might have been a better idea to simply make something like a double size power supply and have that in there instead, basically have these same two units, but enclosed in a single case for simplicity’s sake.
The output of the power supplies with their combined 1200W of power is sure to exceed anything that even the most avid PC enthusiast can throw at it, and because this case can take E-ATX motherboards (up to full 12” x 13” size) such as dual XEON/Opteron boards these power supplies are made to handle them with ease as well, with all the connectors these types of server boards would require.
The connectors available on each of the power supplies are as follows:
650W:
20+4Pin ATX Motherboard Connector
8-Pin CPU Power Connector
4-Pin CPU Power Connector
2 x 6-Pin PCI-Ex Power Connectors
2 x 6+2-Pin PCI-Ex Power Connectors
550W:
6 x Molex Power Connectors
4 x SATA Power Connectors
The 550W unit also has 5 modular power connectors, which (if all being utilised) can give another 9 x Molex connectors, and 4 x SATA connectors as well as the option for 2 x FDD power connectors.
As you can see, there is no shortage of connectors, and the inclusion of modular cables will help to keep the mess to a minimum, well as much as you can in a case like this.
The power supplies themselves are kept in their own compartment at the base of the case, which keeps the cooling for the power supply (and the heat) separate from the rest of the system. The cables from the PSUs are able to be routed through small access holes into the main area, or (for the motherboard power cables) routed behind the motherboard tray where Antec has also included tie down points and cable ties to keep everything secure and out of sight.
The power supplies have a normal 8cm fan inside each of them to keep them cool, and they do so with almost no noise whatsoever, as is the focus of this case. They are fed cold air via a 12cm fan that resides in the lower compartment just in front of them, this fan also helps keep the hard drives in the lower bay nice and cool by drawing in cold air from the front, making the lower compartment a wind tunnel of sorts. Noise is further reduced by the use of rubber anti-vibration strips installed underneath the PSUs.
Each of the power supplies has 3 separate +12V rails, able to deliver 19A each in the 650W PSU and 18A each in the 550W. The picture below shows the spec sheets of each of the units:
I can’t see any system being underpowered with these bad boys in there, and you will have relative peace of mind with their reliability, first of all because they’re Antec units, so that in itself instils faith in their quality, and they come with a 5 year warranty.
