Antec earthwatts EA500 500W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.2 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC "Compatible with Core i7/Core i5" Power Supply

Pros: Nice and quiet PSU, stable quality Antec product.

Cons: none

Overall Review: no bottom fan that pulls are in like most PSUs. this one has a rear fan that exhausts that keeps things cool

Pros: Quiet, efficient

Cons: This power supply, like many manufactured in the last few years, has Active Power Factor Correction (Active PFC), which makes more efficient use of the supplied power. The purpose of any type of power factor correction is to make more efficient use of the supplied power and to present a more "even" load to the utility company. Another "advantage" of Active PFC is that the power supply automatically adjusts to the input AC voltage (within certain limits), and therefore doesn't need nor have a 110V/220V input voltage selection switch. Unfortunately, many of the Active PFC designs (including this one) are incompatible with the "simulated" sine wave output of most of the lesser-expensive, "consumer-grade" Uninterruptible Power Supplies manufactured today. And most people who purchase a UPS but this type, not realizing that its square output won't work with an active PFC power supply, and may even cause that power supply to burn up!

Overall Review: I used this power supply for over 2 years and fought the UPS incompatibility issue, as well as other strange power supply "glitches", that caused my PC to either reboot, power off, or just randomly lock-up. After a couple of years, I bought an expensive "pure sine wave" UPS, and it helped these "glitches", but the new UPS did not totally eliminate them. So I finally gave up on the Antec EA500 power supply and replaced it with a non-PFC model from another manufacturer about 2 months ago - Since then, I haven't had any more PC power problems. I have sworn off both active PFC power supplies and Antec power supplies (I've had 2 others that died), although I still like and use Antec's cases.