The Enermax Liberty - Getting long in the tooth, but still worth a look
by Christoph Katzer on July 30, 2007 1:40 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Cables and Connectors
The cables come in a very nice bag that can be store unused parts. On the front of the PSU we find the jacks where the cables connect. There are six black and two red jacks. The black ones are reserved for the peripheral devices like optical drives and hard disks. The two red jacks are marked PCI-E and are keyed so that only the right cable can be connected (in case the color of the jacks didn't already clue you in).
You cannot plug a wrong cable into any of the jacks because of the design. The black sockets have one of the six holes closed, making it impossible to accidentally insert one of the red cable connections. Likewise, the red sockets have notched corners on the top-center hole to prevent the use of a black cable. Some modular PSUs assume that color coding of the cable connections is sufficient, but Enermax takes the extra step to ensure that no mistakes will be made on the part of end users.
In our new edition of power supply there's a 6-pin PEG cable attached that can easily be transformed into an 8-pin PCI-E 2.0 connector. The GPU side has the standard 6-pin connector with two additional cables for use with newer graphics cards, while the other side that connects to the PSU is split into two cables. The red plug connects to the standard PCI-E power jack and the second connector gets additional power form one of the black jacks. The additional 12V power will thus be drawn from the second 12V rail. This is a very clever move since the second 12V rail will typically not be loaded as much and still has power to deliver. Also, by using up one of the black connections, there is one less cable for connecting devices like HDDs, DVDs, fans, etc. so hopefully the total power use will remain within the rated spec.
The cables are all long enough for average cases. The Molex connectors have a maximum length of 65cm and the SATA connectors reach 5cm less to 60cm. The difference on these cables is that the user will find SATA and Molex connectors together on each cable. Large full-tower cases or designs where the PSU is located on the bottom may have difficulty with the included cables, but for more typical cases the will work fine.
The cables come in a very nice bag that can be store unused parts. On the front of the PSU we find the jacks where the cables connect. There are six black and two red jacks. The black ones are reserved for the peripheral devices like optical drives and hard disks. The two red jacks are marked PCI-E and are keyed so that only the right cable can be connected (in case the color of the jacks didn't already clue you in).
You cannot plug a wrong cable into any of the jacks because of the design. The black sockets have one of the six holes closed, making it impossible to accidentally insert one of the red cable connections. Likewise, the red sockets have notched corners on the top-center hole to prevent the use of a black cable. Some modular PSUs assume that color coding of the cable connections is sufficient, but Enermax takes the extra step to ensure that no mistakes will be made on the part of end users.
In our new edition of power supply there's a 6-pin PEG cable attached that can easily be transformed into an 8-pin PCI-E 2.0 connector. The GPU side has the standard 6-pin connector with two additional cables for use with newer graphics cards, while the other side that connects to the PSU is split into two cables. The red plug connects to the standard PCI-E power jack and the second connector gets additional power form one of the black jacks. The additional 12V power will thus be drawn from the second 12V rail. This is a very clever move since the second 12V rail will typically not be loaded as much and still has power to deliver. Also, by using up one of the black connections, there is one less cable for connecting devices like HDDs, DVDs, fans, etc. so hopefully the total power use will remain within the rated spec.
The cables are all long enough for average cases. The Molex connectors have a maximum length of 65cm and the SATA connectors reach 5cm less to 60cm. The difference on these cables is that the user will find SATA and Molex connectors together on each cable. Large full-tower cases or designs where the PSU is located on the bottom may have difficulty with the included cables, but for more typical cases the will work fine.
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MCSim - Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - link
400W Liberty here. Mine is also about 2 years old and still going strong. There's no need for new PSU. :)wolfman3k5 - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
Just out of curiosity, did you guys run out of stuff to write about?leexgx - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
hehi had the 400W Enermax PSU for 2 years now and its powering my server quite happy (8 hdds and an old P4 2.6ghz 2gb ram) never had an problem with them (use thermaltake TR2 420W-500w now for basic PSU as its the only good ones on my local trade lists never had one blow on me)
CuriousMike - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
fwiw, I bought two 350w enermax "basic" powersupplies about 2 years ago ( built two new machines for home.)One of the units fans developed a bad squeek about 2 months into ownership.
I tried contacting enermax in two different ways - both via email.
One was their usa (my locale) website (which I think was a distributor site?), and the other their taiwanese/chinese site.
Never heard back from them.
JarredWalton - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
The squeaky PSU gets the new fan, and the squeaky wheel gets the oil. You just need to squeak a bit louder probably. That or you got unlucky. I haven't dealt with Enermax directly, but I have had a few companies (DFI, for example) where it took several email messages to get help. Not good at all, but eventually they did respond. The fact that their email support form fails 75% of the time didn't help, of course.Vidmar - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
While I think the Efficiency charts in load percentage are nice, if you included Efficiency charts in watts it would be more informative from a buying perspective.The reason? I know the sum of system load is 375watts normally. The way it is now, if power supply XYZ has a max load of 650watts, I have to calculate where my ~375watts falls into that load chart (~57% load). But if the next power supply has 1000 watts max, then I have to yet again calculate what load percentage that may be for *that* power supply. If the Efficiency charts were in watts, instead of load, no calculations would be necessary. If I could look at your charts and see that XYZ power supply provided those watts the most efficiently, that would be the power supply I would get.
Maybe you could just provide a second X axis on the chart that included the watts.
Thanks!
michal1980 - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
Owned for for probably 18+ months now. It was a replacement for the early problems the antec neo-he's had. and I bought it at a retail store for about 110 bucks. I had no idea if it was good because it was so cheap (for a retail store, everyother branded 500w psu was 150~180 bucks).its given me good stable power for all these years, and I hope for a few more.
kmmatney - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
I've owned a 550W Enermax PSU for over 5 years! It was originally made for the old Thunder K7 dual AMD motherboards, but it now powers my Core 2 Duo. It's been a great power supply - never thought it would last so long. I did recently re-oil the fan (still running on the original fan as well).mostlyprudent - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
Nice review. I appreciate the diversion from the high end. I have been wondering how newer models would stack up against an old favorite. It is nice to see that there is a little more happening in the PSU industry than just wattage hikes.Thinkitect - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
Almost!Value PSU review? Quality Benchmarks? Fortron Source!
FSP Group products should be the baseline for the reviews and price/performance rating.
The AX-400 and AX-500 for value were great (and still are), though efficiency may be outdated. The blue series should be the one to compare to right now.
I've used the same AX for years through many upgrades, and it now powers a relative's workstation. I have the BlueStorm II 500 powering my new gaming rig, and now there are the FX-600-GLN and FX-700-GLN with even higher efficiency ratings.
High quality well priced components that deserve the comparison and recognition.