Antec, be quiet! and Cougar in the test: Straight Power 11 leads the 550 W upper class again

– As the most expensive power supply in comparison, be quiet! Straight Power 11 550W new references. The Antec EarthWatts Gold Pro 550W and Cougar GX-F 550W are almost as good, but just under 20 euros cheaper. But you get competition from another manufacturer.

Upper class at a price of 70 to 100 euros

Numerous power supply tests have shown in the recent past that there are many very good high-end power supplies for well under 100 euros. And the highly competitive market is continuously being expanded to include additional models. The partially modular Antec EarthWatts Gold Pro 550W and the fully modular models be quiet! Straight Power 11 550W and Cougar GX-F 550W on the test bench. At just under 80 euros for the EarthWatts Gold Pro 550W and GX-F 550W, these models are slightly cheaper than the Straight Power 11 550W, which is currently traded from 95 euros.

be quiet! had to act

After more than three years, be quiet! with the 11er the successor generation of the current straight power power supplies. This publication was urgently needed for the manufacturer, because competing products like Sea Sonic are now equal in volume and are quiet in price! beaten. Most recently, the Silent Wings 3 fan ushered in the new generation, now new circuit technologies and an optimized circuit layout should help progress. Antec and Cougar in turn enter this market after a long radio silence. With the EarthWatts Gold Pro 550W and the GX-F 550W, however, the manufacturers do not experiment because they rely on the know-how of their long-term partners Sea Sonic and HEC.

The details of the test methodology, the test station used, the electrical measurements and the sound pressure level measurements can also be read separately in this case in the article "How BitcoinMinersHashrate tests power supplies". The power supply ranking list with the best list offers a constantly updated overview of recommended power supplies.

Technical key data in comparison

Small differences between the power supplies can be seen from the technical data. Accordingly, the EarthWatts Gold Pro 550W has the most compact housing with a depth of only 140 mm. For this reason, the Antec power supply also has a smaller fan with an edge length of 120 mm, whereas that from be quiet! and measure Cougar 135 mm. The efficiency is always certified to 80Plus Gold, which has been standard for high-end power supplies for years.

With a total output power of 550 watts, a single fuse for the 12 volt rail is a typical procedure for which the overcurrent protection still works well. Even better protection can be found in the Straight Power 11 550W, in which the current is divided into four separately protected rails. Otherwise, all three test subjects have the complete protective circuits. At least the overheating protection is not a matter of course, because it requires an independent implementation.

warranty Terms

The guarantee terms differ in that be quiet! is the only company to maintain its service center in Germany. At Antec it is in the Netherlands and Cougar refers to its distributor Caseking. With the express exchange service, be quiet! also offers an additional service that can be used by end customers from Germany and France within the first year after purchase. There is also the option of returning the goods via the dealer within the warranty period, but this may involve a significantly longer processing time. By being in direct contact with Antec, be quiet! and Cougar or Caseking is produced, the RMA chain can be shortened.

Warranty period versus service

The manufacturer's guarantee from Antec and Cougar is quantitative with seven years of the five-year guarantee from be quiet! think. Qualitative for this is the guarantee from be quiet! with the German-speaking manufacturer service and the express exchange, which is particularly important in the first weeks and months after purchase. In this period, a failure is much more likely than in the following months or years.

Scope of delivery and exterior

The outer packaging of the power supplies provides extensive information about the technologies used and the connector equipment. Antec and Cougar also depict diagrams about the behavior of the fan control and the efficiency, which are largely in line with the measurements that were carried out. All manufacturers emphasize the quality of the fans they use, which should be superior to ordinary brands in terms of service life and volume.

A special mention is made of the main transformer of the GX-F 550W, which is supposed to ensure lower losses and better heat dissipation with its unusual core design. be quiet! and Cougar also emphasize the cable-free circuit layout by soldering circuit boards directly to one another instead of laying cables.

The scope of delivery is similar for all subjects with the manual, power cord and screws. The only extras for the Straight Power 11 550W and GX-F 550W are two Velcro cable ties, these being with be quiet! can be supplemented with other normal cable ties.

All three power supply enclosures are extremely stable. The fan grill was implemented using parallel metal struts that allow better air circulation compared to other structures. The grid of the Straight Power 11 550W can be pushed in so far without great effort that the fan can be brought to a standstill. In practice, however, this is not a problem.

cable Features

In the power class of 550 watts, the range of connectors for normal gaming systems is sufficient. With nine instead of six SATA connectors, only the Straight Power 11 550W stands out from the crowd – it is also the only power supply that still offers a floppy adapter. The division of the PCIe connector weighs more heavily. While be quiet! and Cougar split the two connections on two cable harnesses, the EarthWatts Gold Pro 550W only has one Y-cable, which also only has the standard 18 AWG core cross-sections. With the operation of a performance-hungry graphics card, there are more losses via the cable and the voltage drop is somewhat higher. Likewise, only the be quiet! and Cougar thicker 16 AWG core cross-sections for the CPU cable, so that these problems can be avoided when transferred to high-performance CPUs.

As far as cable optics are concerned, each manufacturer goes its own way. be quiet! relies entirely on sleeve sheathing, Cougar on ribbon cable and Antec on a mix of the two. When dimensioning the individual cable harnesses, attention was paid to a long CPU line, which is of great importance for the majority of today's PC cases in order to be able to lay the cable behind the mainboard tray. All manufacturers have divided the peripheral plugs into three strands in order to guarantee maximum individuality when laying cables.

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