Antec VP450 Power Supply 450 Watts PSU with 120mm Silent Cooling Fan, Dual +12 V Rails, ATX12V 2.3, 2 Years Warranty

The way I look at it, a PSU either works or it doesn't. Chances are good that if you are also considering on purchasing a power supply at this price point, you also have the same viewpoint as I. I've always told users that actually putting together and assembling a computer is not difficult at all. The hardest part is purchasing the right parts that goes in to that computer! This power supply has all the juice I need for it to power my budget build and the price looks very attractive as well. Antec, while I believe they are not considered one of the top power supply makers out there in terms of quality wise, they are still a good candidate. I love Antec computer cases (I think they are the same company) and so I would like to think they would make good power supplies as well.There's really not much else to say. It has the connectors I need and well, the power supply works! What many users want to know is is the thing quiet enough. I can assure you that this unit is pretty much dead silent when in operation. In fact, most power supplies I've come across these days are very quiet as well so you really don't have to worry too much about this issue.Many experienced PC builders can assure you that you should never, ever skimp on your power supply unit. It is one of the main component that actually gives all your hardware power and so a poorly made power supply can actually increase the chances of it ruining your computer. Although I do admit that I rarely see this, do you really want to take the chance? You could in reality save $10-$15 dollars and get a cheaper power supply but you also should understand the risk of doing so. I believe this Antec power supply is a perfect balance between it being cheap and yet still trustworthy enough for me to put in my build.

Antec used to be the "go to choice" but they for a few years had some quality problems. This is now the 2nd one like this I ordered and both are working perfectly. They deliver a LITTLE more power then they state (I was "overbudget" by 10w), and that's a good thing. It has some "headroom" as they say in the puter building business. I wouldn't attempt to put it in place where say 500w is needed, but if ur just a few watts over budget, this has you covered. It has all the usual plugs that you need. Keep in mind it only has 1 six pin connector for the graphics card, but unless your getting a top of the line graphics card, this should do. There's only a few that need two 6 pin connectors for the graphics card. If you get one of them get a higher powered psu is my advice. The cords length is perfectly acceptable. U really don't want too much, and this one isn't. A little extra but not too much. The cables are not wrapped, so u'll need to do some cable management or u'll have a "Spaghetti mess" on ur hands, but agin, that's not an uncommon problem. A competent system builder can manage this. Overall a solid psu.

I had a Thermaltake 700 watt monster PSU for my big gaming and webmaster box. I was working on the office and accidentally turned off the breaker without powering down first. As most of you probably know, you shouldn't turn off the power before turning off the computer. But I forgot, and this very hefty Thermaltake modular PSU that cost me over $130 just could not handle it. I would like to mention that it was SUPPOSED to have some controls in the BIOS that would crank down fan speeds on both the CPU and chassis fan so that you could use it quietly when there was not a lot going on, and it was supposed to crank the fans up as you used more resources. That set of features NEVER worked with my ASUS motherboard, and even after calling and writing Thermaltake, they were not willing to support it as an ancillary feature. They would not exchange it for something like a "bonus" feature not working. So I bought this little 450 watt Antec as a replacement, after reading the reviews. I am absolutely thrilled with it. It powers everything, including three SATA hard drives, one old IDE hard drive (power hog) and one each SATA and IDE DVD burners. I bench tested everything before packing it back into the case and levels on all rails were perfectly stable and well conditioned, in spite of one rail being significantly loaded compared to the others. It had the "+4" for the main connector and two 4x4 connectors in case I had had a second CPU socket (which I didn't but what if I want to use it elsewhere?) and for $35, it was nearly $100 less than the power hog that just conked out on me. Once I set up the settings in the BIOS for the quiet fan features (I set the CPU fan on "optimal" and the chassis fan on "silent") and restarted it, I was shocked. It is just as quiet as my tiny SFF office box that sits next to the gaming box. Not only that but it has a great looking shiny black case and invisible black fan so that if I wanted to, I could have a glass-sided box (which I don't but you never know if I might want to) so it looks great too. It does NOT have braided covers for the rails, but most builders want to use their own anyhow. I'm impressed. I'm an IT professional and I endorse this lovely little PSU. :)