Verdict:

Cheap, cheerful and reasonably efficient.

Antec's EarthWatts series is marketed as 'the most environmentally friendly power supply yet', and the company goes on to claim that the PSUs are energy-efficient and will therefore save you money.

The EA 650 is the highest-rated model in the EarthWatts series, having a maximum output of 650W. As all the cables are hard-wired into the PSU, and it's cooled by a basic 120mm fan, the EA 650 is the cheapest PSU in this Labs test. Unlike the lower-wattage EarthWatts models, the EA 650 has three 12V rails, two rated at 22A and the third at 25A, with a maximum combined output of 45A. The rails are configured with 12V1 powering the motherboard and disk drives, 12V2 the CPU and motherboard, and 12V3 the PCI-E power cables, which have one 6+2-pin and one 6-pin connector.

In our tests, the EA 650 was able to output a stable voltage from each of its rails, although the 120mm fan is audible. It's also reasonably efficient, averaging 83 per cent at full load, drawing 786W from the mains to produce 650W. This is above average, but there are more efficient PSUs available, such as Antec's very own Quattro TQP 1000, which we measured as being an incredible 86 per cent efficient at full load.

Although the EA 650 isn't as energy-efficient as its EarthWatts branding implies, it's competitively priced for a 650W PSU. If you're on a tight budget then this stable PSU is worth considering.

• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008
• Multi-GPU graphics - 20th June 2008
• CPU water cooling - 17th June 2008

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