Antec High Current Gamer 850W Power Supply Review

Voltage Regulation

To test voltage regulation we load the power supply to five different load scenarios that give an equal spread of load across every single rail. So that means 20% on all rails, 40% on all rails and so on. We then calculate the average deviance of each rail from its expected voltage.

Voltage regulation on the Antec HCG 850W power supply is superb with less than +-1.2% across all the rails.

Power Efficiency

Power efficiency is measured by calculating actual supplied wattage divided by the wattage drawn at the wall/plug, multiplied by 100 to give a percentage. We then compare that to the particular 80 Plus certification the company claims to see if it meets that. You can see the 80 Plus certifications below, we always test 230v power supplies.

The Antec High Current Gamer 850W power supply is rated for 80 Plus Bronze and we can see it exceeds that by far. It is more or less passable as an 80 Plus Silver Unit. Only the 50% load efficiency needs to be 1% higher for it to pass that certification.

Power Factor Correction

Power Factor Correction is the ratio of the real power flowing to the load, to the apparent power in the circuit. The aim of PFC is to make the load circuitry that is power factor corrected appear purely resistive (apparent power equal to real power). In this case, the voltage and current are in phase and the reactive power consumption is zero. The closer the number to one the better as this allows the most efficient delivery of electrical power (Source – Wikipedia).

The Antec HCG 850W PSU had strong PFC across all load scenarios.