Antec hcg 750 gold review in Spanish (full analysis)

Antec HCG 750 Gold is not exactly the latest power supply presented by the brand, but it is one of the families with the best quality / price ratio. And it is that next to it, we have versions of 650W, 750W and 850W. Just recently two new members were introduced, 850W and 1000W also with excellent performance and price and made by Seasonic like this one.

We have chosen this model precisely for its 750W power and its completely modular format that includes connectors for high-end and enthusiastic hardware, something that is not usual below 850W.

So, if you are thinking of buying a new PSU, perhaps this could be yours. And before we begin, we thank Antec for their trust in us by accepting our request from this PSU for analysis.

Antec HCG 750 Gold technical characteristics

Unboxing

We are pleased to see the quality of the bundle of this Antec HCG 750 Gold, which has a thick cardboard box with a case-type opening that in turn will be inside a flexible cardboard box that serves as an external cover. In it, we see the distinctive gray and yellow colors of the brand and a lot of information about its product.

We open the main box to find a modular power supply tucked inside a black cloth pouch. In turn, it is inside an almost complete mold of thick polyethylene foam. The cables, on the other hand, come inside another cloth bag and in turn inside a plastic bag, all of them independent and well secured with clips.

In total we will have the following elements:

• Antec HCG 750 Gold Modular Source Cable Set (we'll take a closer look later) 3-Pin Power Cord User Manual and Wiring Diagram Velcro Straps for Cable Routing

All of high quality and without missing anything. In fact, these velcro strips will be very useful for chassis that do not have any of them, and only have the annoying plastic clips.

Design and exterior

Antec is characterized by being a very gaming-oriented brand, although in its range of power supplies we do not find too many of these physical aspects. The clear example is in the photos of this PSU, which presents a traditional ATX format of 140 mm deep, 86 mm high and 150 mm wide with all its metallic faces and painted in matte black.

It may go unnoticed, but the fact that it is 140 mm instead of 160 mm or 150 mm, will make things much easier for us when it comes to installing it in almost all ATX chassis on the market. During the innumerable assemblies that we have made, we have been able to verify that 160 mm would put the PSU assembly in many problems, so with the Antec we will have almost no problem.

By studying the different faces a little more, we do not have any type of opening on their sides, something that is maintained throughout its range of sources. Some manufacturers are already starting to focus more on the aesthetics of their fountains like Cooler Master adding lighting or Asus adding many more openings.

The upper face contains the obligatory input / output information sticker and efficiency, while the lower face is open to the outside so that the fan draws air in. It features a stiff honeycomb-style steel mesh on which a very quiet 120mm Dynamic Fluid Bearing (FDB) fan is mounted.

In fact, the ventilation system has semi-passive control, which many of the sources are currently assembled by Seasonic. This system we will notice quickly if we go to the front or external face. In it we find a large square button that, if we press in, we will activate the semi-passive mode or Hybrid Mode, while if we keep it removed, it will be deactivated. This allows the system to stop the fan when the power is below 40% of the available capacity.

And finally we leave the back or internal face to the end, because it is the one that contains all the connectors necessary to power our equipment. As we can see, it is 100% modular and now we will deal with analyzing each of these cables and their benefits.

Antec HCG 750 Gold Cable Management

This time we have two types of cables, although they all have the same 2 mm section, which makes us think that they will be 18AWG type, the minimum standard recommended by the North American standard. Well then we have metal meshed cables for the 24-pin ATX, the two 8-pin CPU cables and the two 6 + 2-pin PCIe cables. Meanwhile, the MOLEX cable and the two SATA cables will be flat.

We must also keep in mind that the cables mentioned above have this metallic mesh due to the fact that they integrate capacitors behind their connection. Antec gives it the name of PowerCache, and its function is to improve the signal and eliminate residual peaks. In practice, the performance is the same, and the only thing it achieves is to harden the cable at the end due to the rubber that covers them and worsen their routing. And we must say that this time this end is very, very hard to bend.

Regarding the quantity and length of cables and connectors of Antec HCG 750 Gold, we are facing an own configuration of sources of 850W or higher. What's more, there are still more connectors to increase its capacity, although we would have to purchase cables on our own. The connector count is as follows:

• 1x 24-pin ATX split into two 5x PCIe or 8-pin or 6 + 2-pin CPU 4x SATA / MOLEX

Let's make the following considerations about cables:

• Each SATA cable has 4 connectors, while the MOLEX has 3.It also includes an FDD extender to connect 101 mm long Diskette drives in a flat configuration.In turn, the two PCIe cables each have two connectors 6 + 2-pin is not the best in terms of power supply, but at least it covers the possibility of installing three-connector GPUs like the Nvidia Titan or the custom RTX 2080 Ti. We will always recommend using two of these connectors independently if our GPU has more than one power input, in order to better distribute the power over several cables. Especially in this it will be important to be of type 18AWG instead of 16AWG.

Next, we are going to see a comparison of the length of these main cables versus what other sources recently analyzed by us offer:

We can see in this comparison that the Antec HCG 750 Gold is located quite high in the length of the ATX and PCIe cables. With these lengths we will not have any problem even in full tower chassis.

However, we see that in CPU cables the measurements are simply standard. A priori, we should not have any problem, but we have seen cases in which this length is too fair, either because the source is in the front of the chassis or because it is too wide a path. In any case, there are extenders for that.

Antec HCG 750 Gold internal review

Now we proceed to open this Antec HCG 750 Gold power supply to see more closely what we find inside. And the first thing we must remove is the plate that carries the fan, a 120 mm Hong Hua HA1225H12F-Z that will be controlled by a NO PWM signal (not controlled) reaching a maximum of 2200 RPM. Of course, rest assured that this regime will practically never be achieved, unless our PSU is in a critical situation. The heatsinks that have been used are small finned blocks of aluminum, although somewhat basic in terms of aesthetics and profile.

A few days ago we analyzed a source that in interior appearance and distribution of components was very similar, we talked about the Asus ROG Strix 750W. And it is that in both cases the manufacturer Seasonic has used its Focus Plus platform for this configuration. It is as if we are comparing a reference graphics card and an assembler “ rebrand ”.

A platform of a power supply is the base design that manufacturers like CWT have for different brands. If two sources of different brands have the same manufacturer and platform, then their internal design will be very similar, with exactly the same base, and differences in more concrete aspects such as capacitors, fan, wiring, etc.

Another good way to identify that it is this Seasonic platform, is to see that the cables have capacitors at their ends, something quite characteristic of it. This platform has currently been relegated to the background by the implementation of the new Focus GX, which eliminates capacitors in cables and optimizes the power supply for powerful GPUs. In any case, this platform is later than this source, so it is normal not to implement it.

In the primary filter we have an LLC type full bridge design with DC-DC rectifiers on the 3.3V and 5V rails, Antec calls it Phasewave Design. It consists of 4 Y capacitors, 2 X capacitors and a pair of coils characteristic of this platform. And although it is out of sight in the photograph, we have a protection system consisting of a Relay for surges and an NTC thermistor for high temperatures.

The largest condenser we see is the primary, which in this case is signed by the Japanese manufacturer Rubycon. It has a capacity of 560 µF at a maximum of 105 ° C. With this capacity on the platform, an excellent hold-up time of between 100 and 500 ms is obtained, so the choice has been good.

The secondary filter consists of several 3300 µF Nichicon electrolytic capacitors and multiple solid capacitors also from the same manufacturer, and consequently all of them Japanese.

Regarding protection systems, we have the full range of this, and the OCP has only been omitted in the 12V rail due to the fact that it is a single-rail configuration. Something that is perfectly acceptable in a 750W PSU.

Test bench and performance test

This time we do not have tests and tests carried out by Cybenetics, so we will reduce the section to see a comparison of consumption between this and another source that we are analyzing with the same test bench:

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel Core i5-9400F
Base plate:	MSI Z390 MEG ACE
Memory:	16GB T-Force Vulcan Z 3400 MHz
Heatsink	Stock
HDD	ADATA SU750
Graphic card	Nvidia RTX 2060 Founders edition
Power supply	Antec HCG Gold 750W

We have measured consumption with a Green Blue wattmeter connected directly to the wall socket. In addition, we will test the semi-passive mode to see the behavior of this power supply.

Consumption and efficiency

It is true that the components used are of an excellent efficiency of 80 Plus GOLD, so, consequently, we will have quite low and measured values. To make it an even more real fit in the comparison, both CPU and GPU were at the same temperature when we took the data.

Semi-passive mode (Hybrid Mode)

This Antec HCG 750 Gold already has a time, and it is normal for the control system in this way to be simply analog rather than digital. This means that the system relies on a temperature sensor to determine whether or not it needs to activate the fan when it passes a certain threshold, and the same occurs when it passes a certain power threshold, in this case 40%. The other way to manage this is through hysteresis through smarter digital control and a wider area on / off.

Friend Breixo explains here what this hysteresis consists of

Hysteresis is a scientific concept that is very important, for example, to study magnetism. In this case we are going to move away from that world and make a simple explanation applicable to the control of a fan in a power supply.

These graphics are entirely invented number and interval dramatizations for illustrative purposes.

When there is no hysteresis setting on a semi-passive source, the temperature required to turn on your fan is the same as to turn it off. Therefore, if we are (for example) in a game session and the source reaches the necessary temperature point, its fan will turn on. If the load is maintained or reduced slightly, the source is expected to drop below this point in temperature, causing the fan to turn off. It is also foreseeable that soon afterwards the temperature will reach the ignition point again.

This behavior we describe very easily causes fan on and off loops that are harmful to the fan , reducing the durability benefits of the fan that a semi-passive mode should offer, while the source is “half-cooled” and the loudness is “reduced to half” too.

When the semi-passive mode is controlled more intelligently and a hysteresis setting is entered (especially if there is a digital microcontroller in charge of regulating this mode), the point at which the fan is turned on is not the same as it takes to Turn off. That is, an example with the graph above: we force the source to turn on the fan at 60ºC, but it will not turn off until the source reduces its temperature to 55ºC. In this way, we achieve several things:

1. Getting the source fan to continuously keep the fan on for as long as necessary, which is much more positive in every way than the loops described above. Avoid loud spikes in these ignition loops, versus continuous operation at acceptable revs. Offer much better cooling to the power supply.

Unfortunately, the majority of power supplies on the market with semi-passive modes include a simple one, basically due to its low production cost, ease of implementation, and the little that most reviewers seem to care about this aspect. In any case, with sources that offer long warranty periods and good efficiency, the semi-passive mode type should not be a big concern.

Hybrid Mode Activated

This is the way to keep the fan off while the conditions are less than 40% (300W) consumption and low temperatures. Precisely in this test bench is what we have, a consumption always below these 300W, so the fan has not even needed to activate after a few hours of hardware stress.

But of course, we must report what would happen if it were activated. In this case, the system will react to certain events, plain and simple, so that if certain thresholds are exceeded, the fan will start, and if not, it will turn off. While we remain in that yes / no band, we will experience continuous on and off, this is precisely what we would avoid if we had hysteresis. In addition, the dynamic-fluid bearing system of this fan will suffer more than if it were just balls.

Regarding temperature, we have collected values ​​using the thermal camera around 40 ° C, not sufficient for fan activation.

Hybrid Mode Off

If we turn it off, then the fan will stay on all the time, albeit at relatively low RPMs, about 800. Being 120 mm, the noise it generates is very little, and we will practically not notice its presence.

On this occasion, we have made two captures after a time interval to see how the temperature of the source evolves. We see that with the activation of the fan the surface of the components is much cooler, falling to 27 ° C. Consequently, all the heat is transferred to the front face, which will be where we give it an exit.

Final words and conclusion about Antec HCG 750 Gold

This Antec HCG 750 Gold font is one of the manufacturer's most aggressive bets in terms of quality / price, precisely why we wanted to analyze it. One of its great advantages is having a 100% modular configuration with an abundant and complete connectivity even for enthusiastic gaming configurations and powerful hardware.

And it is that we have a double connection for an 8-pin CPU and a double PCIe cable with two connectors each for powerful GPUs. In this last element, we would have liked to have 16AWG cables instead of 18AWG, but offer better performance against high energy demand. In addition, the cables have capacitors, which makes their ends very rigid and difficult to handle in narrow places.

We recommend reading our updated guide to the best power supplies by price.

We already know the semi-passive mode from this and other analyzes, so we do not have too many surprises in terms of its management, since it is characteristic of the Seasonic Focus Plus platform. However , it is a very quiet PSU even without the active mode, since the fan has a fluid bearing and 120 mm, and at 800 RPM we almost did not notice its presence.

We would have liked more records about its performance. Being an 80 Plus Gold certification it will offer us between 90 and 92% efficiency, but always the complete Cybenetics tests help the user to see them much better. In any case, with a price of only 115 euros it is an option that will go wonderfully for gaming configurations. It has Japanese capacitors and a very compact size, ideal for ATX chassis.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ COMPACT DESIGN OF ONLY 140 DEPTH	- CAPACITORS IN THE CABLES AND THEY ARE PRETTY RIGID
+ 100% MODULAR AND COMPLETE REAR CONNECTION PANEL	- THE SEMI-PASSIVE MODE CONTROL IS NOT DIGITAL ON THIS PLATFORM
+ 10 YEARS WARRANTY AND 100% JAPANESE CAPACITORS
+ SEMI-PASSIVE MODE AND VERY SILENT FAN
+ GREAT QUALITY / PRICE OF THE SET

The Professional Review team awards him the gold medal:

Antec HCG 750 Gold

INTERNAL QUALITY - 92%

SOUNDNESS - 86%

WIRING MANAGEMENT - 85%

PROTECTION SYSTEMS - 85%

PRICE - 86%

87%

100% modular source and connectivity typical of an 850W or higher