Antec Phantom 500w Silent PSU
Introduction & Packaging
Published: 11th August 2006 | Source: Antec | Price: |
Introduction
The balance between power and performance is a hard one to perfect. Cooling the most high-powered power supplies is a difficult task, and not something that is always possible with low noise fans.
Various 'Silent' Power supplies have been designed to try and combat this problem, incorporating fanless and watercooled designs. However, for the most part these units have been underpowered and incapable of producing stable voltage output.
Today I'll be looking at the Phantom 500w power supply from Antec. This unit is a hybrid design, which is passively cooled under light to moderate load, and powers on an integrated 80mm fan when things start to get really hot!
Packaging
A short while ago I took a look and Antec's NeoHE 550w PSU, and commented on the professional styling of the packaging. Antec really don't need flashy, over the top packaging to make sales - their reputation for making quality products does a good enough job.
The same approach has been used with the Phantom PSU packaging, which has a dark theme and a picture of this rather unusual looking power supply printed on the front.


The balance between power and performance is a hard one to perfect. Cooling the most high-powered power supplies is a difficult task, and not something that is always possible with low noise fans.
Various 'Silent' Power supplies have been designed to try and combat this problem, incorporating fanless and watercooled designs. However, for the most part these units have been underpowered and incapable of producing stable voltage output.
Today I'll be looking at the Phantom 500w power supply from Antec. This unit is a hybrid design, which is passively cooled under light to moderate load, and powers on an integrated 80mm fan when things start to get really hot!
Packaging
A short while ago I took a look and Antec's NeoHE 550w PSU, and commented on the professional styling of the packaging. Antec really don't need flashy, over the top packaging to make sales - their reputation for making quality products does a good enough job.
The same approach has been used with the Phantom PSU packaging, which has a dark theme and a picture of this rather unusual looking power supply printed on the front.
The top and front of the packaging is largely a blank canvas, being only populated by some images of the unit and some brief specifications.
Flip the packaging around and we can see that Antec have gone into much more detail on the back of the box, listing some of the units best features, such as: Hybrid design, temperature sensitive fan, ATX 12v 2.0 and gold plated connectors to name just a few.
Flip the packaging around and we can see that Antec have gone into much more detail on the back of the box, listing some of the units best features, such as: Hybrid design, temperature sensitive fan, ATX 12v 2.0 and gold plated connectors to name just a few.
Most Recent Comments
Nice little PSU for those who really value silence. Very neat looking little unitQuote
Nice review but i wouldn't consider getting one
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Yeah its a good looking unit with some good features. Out of all the PSU's i;ve tested so far, this would have to be the best for a silent PC build.
If anybody wants to see any other silent PSU's tested, let me know
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If anybody wants to see any other silent PSU's tested, let me know

how about a tagan 580w review? looking at one for my buildQuote
Nice review - would be a great one for a media PC