Antec managed to acomplish what they promised for this PSU: good and reliable performance without fancy visual features like top notch paint job, LED lighting etc. The VP550P, despite its low price, proved to be a solid performer with good voltage regulation on all rails, outstanding ripple/noise suppression and tolerant enough to high temperatures. Its major drawbacks are the low efficiency at very low loads, the lack of sleeving on almost all cables and finally, the most important of all, the noisy fan it is equipped with. I wonder why Antec chose to install such a noisy fan in this PSU, since many users may not mind the non-sleeved wires but definitely will be annoyed by the loud hum the fan produces at full speed. I assume they were afraid that a lower RPM fan may not be able to cool a plain 80 PLUS PSU with high energy dissipation, but on the other hand I think Antec with its huge experience should have followed an alternative path, e.g. use of larger heatsinks.

To sum up, if you are looking for an affordable PSU to power a low-mid range system and you can stand increased noise output (at least when the unit operates at high loads) then Antec VP550P will fully satisfy you. The only requirement is that you must live in an area with 230VAC power grid since the VP550P does not support universal power input, so U.S. residents should look elsewhere.