Scott Richards, Senior Vice President, Antec

We recently had time to chat with Scott Richards in Antec about their forthcoming hardware including the high efficiency "Signature" power supply products, unfortunately right now Scott isn't at liberty to divulge detailed information on certain products, but we felt we should at least try!

DH: You claim that your Signature series of PSU's has each and every unit hand tested by your engineers. How do these tests differ from the automatic factory tests that most companies do at the end of the manufacturing cycle?

Scott: We’ll be happy to answer all questions relating to the Signature Series closer to its release.

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DH: To pass the 80PLUS standard was it just a matter of using the best components available, or did your engineers have to come up with new solutions? Without revealing any trade secrets, can you tell us more about the reasons your new PSUs are so efficient?

Scott: The 80 Plus standard did mean that we had to use different circuit topologies in many cases. Traditional designs just cannot give you the efficiency required, even with the finest components. For example, the TruePower Quattro designs we used a circuit design called Active Clamp that, in effect, recaptures some of the energy lost through the transformer.

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DH: To confirm or dispel a common myth can you answer this question: will the more efficient PSU's mean that consumers will be able to run higher specification components on Antec 80plus units than psu's from alternative manufacturers with the same wattage rating?

Scott: No.  80 Plus and higher efficiency offer the same net power to the user inside his or her system. What it means is that it takes less input power from your electricity mains for the same performance in your PC.  A side benefit is that, because they use the input energy more efficiently, 80 Plus designs are cooler, since lost energy generates heat, and therefore can also run quieter.
By the way, speaking of myths, allow me to dispel one, since it still comes up. Some people are confused by the power ratings manufacturers use. Some of our competition still use peak power ratings for the model and names of their power supplies.  You know model XXX600, would be a peak power 600 Watt PSU but the continuous power rating would be significantly less than 600 Watts. All Antec power supplies are, and always have been, named for their continuous available power. We have never used peak power ratings and don’t even publish them in our specs. Just to be clear, at Antec a model XXX550, or whatever, offers 550 Watts of continuous power.

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DH: The signature series receives an 80 Plus certification, meaning efficiency stays above 80% at 20-100% load. It’s common knowledge a high efficiency power supply unit requires less cooling as less power is wasted and turns to heat, however we also understand that the unit has to remain cool enough under the entire load range to achieve a >80% efficiency. As a very large percentage of enthusiasts dislike noise, a noisy unit would not be in their shortlist no matter how well it could perform. Can you please describe the basic parts of its cooling system and comment on the expected noise levels of the Signature units?
 
Scott: Stay tuned.

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DH: Whether modular power supply units’ performance and safety is up to par with the normal uninterrupted wire units is always a debate among enthusiasts. However the truth is that modular power supply units are very popular due to the convenience and better aesthetics that they offer. Do you plan to release 80-Plus certified modular power supply units as well?

Scott: It is true that they are popular. It is also true that the extra resistance due to the modular design makes it very difficult to promise an fully modular 80 Plus design in the very near future.  You’ll notice that our TruePower Quattro design uses a sort of “hybrid” approach where we hard wire more of the connectors that we think people will use most often, as opposed to just the main motherboard connector.

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DH: It is very interesting to note that your Signature PSU series units will ship with individual hand-tested reports. While the majority of the PC users neglect terms such as Electronic Noise, enthusiasts and especially Audio/Video experts often like to know that they are buying a unit which will not create much noise both at the output but also at the input terminals. Unfortunately equipment which can effectively detect electronic noise is complicated, costly and rare to find, however people are quick to blame a PSU as the cause of the noise they detect at their Audio/Video signals. Will your reports include ripple test results as well for the Audio/Video enthusiasts to sleep peacefully?

Scott: Again, sorry, this is a very good question but I will have to answer it later.

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DH: In each generation of computer PSUs, the majority of the units look very similar to each other, sharing the same circuit topology and more, forcing performance to depend mostly on the quality of the installed components and/or cooling design. Can we expect to see industrial grade (>100C rated) or even more ‘exotic’ equipment in a Signature PSU, such as solid state capacitors or an original topology design? Can we expect Antec to use ‘exotic’ parts or pioneering topology designs in the near future?

Scott: Without talking about Signature Series, I would say that we have already explored more exotic topologies, like the Active Clamp design mentioned above. When we started using dual forward designs, they were still relatively unique but now have become common place.

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DH: When designing a power supply unit and a chassis how closely do Antec work with graphics card manufacturers. Specifically, do you design cases around large components like the 8800 GTX and how does the relationship work when adding new plugs such as the 8pin gfx configuration AMD have implemented.

Scott: We work closely and are in constant contact and conversation with the major technology companies, like AMD, Intel, nVidia, etc. We learn about their new designs, specs or other requirements like connectors as soon as they tell us.  That does not mean that we immediately incorporate those. There is always a fine balance between the total demands of the market and the more “bleeding edge” requirements of a few early adopters. Also, there is always the question of whether a new standard will be adopted by the market. So, as I say, all these factors have to be balanced and we change or upgrade our designs based on the target audience of the product and the overall demand of the marketplace.

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DH: What do you see as being the next major step forward in PSU technology?

Scott: I believe the worldwide demand for more “green” designs will increase and cause a wave of continued innovation and improvement in PSU designs. Where, exactly, that takes us over the next few years is a beyond my crystal ball’s reception range.

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DH: You have many new cases aimed at Home Theater solutions. Do you believe this is the future of PC chassis design, or just a separate product range aimed to compete with consoles which are becoming more like computers with each generation?

Scott: Home Theatre solutions have, thus far at least, only been moderately successful and, even then, only in select markets. For example, they have not had much impact at all in North America. So, at this point it would very difficult to say that they anything other than another category. Obviously, though, it is a category that we continue to support and invest in so we do expect continued growth if not quite the explosion that some predicted.

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DH: The Fusion Max seems to be a behemoth when compared to standard home theater cases. Did you have a specific target in mind when you designed it, or were you just aiming to deliver a case that gives users all the flexibility of a standard case?

Scott: We wanted to give high performance users a design that would allow them to also use with truly advanced graphics cards, too, for a total solution.

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DH: Antec are using 2 or 3 chambers to reduce heat generation in their chassis design. Did the move from 2 in the smaller cases to 3 in the larger ones really make a difference? If so, can we expect to see one of the smaller cases use some of the ideas from the larger ones in the future?

Scott: It depends on the design criteria and target market for a particular chassis.  In the new mini-P180, for example, we used a two chamber design and put a lot of active cooling into the upper chamber to get the best balance between quiet and performance in a smaller chassis and the three layer panel design also contributes to quietnes. Our micro-ATX Fusion 430 design, because we didn’t need to worry about things like cutting-edge graphics, we can use a three chamber design for very quiet operation in a standard steel chassis.

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DH: There is a push in two directions at the moment, one from users who desire smaller PC's with lower power consumption and one from consumers who want exceptional performance regardless of the size/power draw of their system. What do Antec see as the more important market going forward?

Scott: We are serving both markets, with products like our small, energy efficient NSK-3480 to our new total performance Twelve Hundred.  I think we can continue to service both. Right now the marketplace tells us that both are nearly equal, although we do sell more of the high performance designs. I sort of look at like cars. Sure Mercedes makes an A-class but they also make a high performance sedan in general production like an S 600.  I think a market oriented company that listens to their customers can serve both ends of the market well.

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DH: Do Antec feel manufacturers of other components such as GPU's and CPU's should/could do more to make their products more energy efficient?

Scott: Well, you know I’d be less than truthful if I didn’t say yes. But the graphics companies are just serving a demand in the market place for quicker, more realistic graphics performance so you really can’t blame them.  And CPU companies have made significant strides in energy consumption to performance ratios and I think that trend will continue.

 
DH: Thanks for your time Scott, much appreciated !