Enermax Revolution 85+ High Efficiency PSU
by Christoph Katzer on November 6, 2008 4:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Introduction
We first received a sample of the Revolution 85+ about two months ago. Enermax was going to launch the product much earlier, but a sudden change in plans created some delays. During the past couple weeks, we've had a chance to play around with final hardware, which has been quite fun. There are some new innovations inside this PSU, and in fact the inside looks totally different from what we've seen in the past. Enermax now includes DC-to-DC circuitry to create all of the lower voltage rails, something normally done with a transformer. DC-to-DC technology is nothing new since we've already seen it in several other units, but the approach Enermax took isn't quite the same as other vendors, which we will see later. Note that some of the images for this article come from Enermax marketing, including photos of the packaging material since that wasn't ready in time for this review.
The appearance of our first sample was similar to previous tested models like the Infiniti or Galaxy. In fact, this power supply was originally going to be branded Galaxy 2 before Enermax chose the Revolution moniker. The original came in a gunmetal color with a golden fan-grille installed over the huge 135mm fan; all of that changed with the latest version, which will finally hit the market.
In typical Enermax fashion, the company equipped this power supply with a massive modular cabling system that can satisfy pretty much any need. Some critics will say that modular cables can cause problems with high-performance power supplies, but during testing Enermax still manages to reach very high efficiency with stable voltages.
The Revolution 85+ series comes in four different wattages: 850W, 950W, 1050W, and 1250W -- although the last will only be available for 230VAC (i.e. Europe). Today we will be looking at the 1050W model, the ERV1050EWT. The feature list is impressive, with six 12V rails, no-load operation (which will be important for future hybrid power GPUs), power saving modes for upcoming CPUs, high efficiency, and all outputs rated at 50°C.
The six 12V rails are each rated at 30 amps, although Enermax has almost certainly set the OCP a little higher, i.e. 35 amps. There is more than enough power to connect the most demanding graphics cards, a highly overclocked processor, plenty of hard drives, and still have room to spare. 12V1 delivers power to the 24-pin ATX connector; 12V2 powers both the 4/8-pin and 8-pin EPS connectors; 12V3 is for the first and second graphics card connectors; 12V4 handles the first 12-pin socket and peripheral sockets 1, 2, and 3; 12V5 gets the second and third 12-pin sockets; and last, 12V6 is for the fourth 12-pin socket and the remaining peripherals. The distribution is very good and nobody should experience any overloads with today's hardware. The 3.3V and 5V are both rated at only 25A, although this is still more than sufficient for modern systems. The standby 5V rail is stated at 5A, which is massive compared to many other power supplies, but it's necessary in order to comply with the EPS12V regulations in version 2.92.
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houe - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
Seems odd to have a "efficient" 1000 watt computer. If you care about low power I doubt you'll be putting a 1000 watt supply in your rig. Any computer that consumes 200 watts at idle is probably not a computer you'll want to run 24/7 so the efficiency probably isn't going to matter too much. That being said it still seems like a cool power supply.Rezurecta - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
Thank you for the dumbest comment ever.MadMan007 - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
I don't think it was dumb and certainly not the dumbest comment ever. He asked why they start at 800W (should have said 850W but whatever) and he's right about the real power draw of systems. Having super high power PSUs is fine but I'd love to see efficiency like this starting with a 400-500W unit not 850W. A mega-PC is going to draw lots of power anyway. The 82+ line does fill the lower power draw range, maybe that's why they started this higher, but that doesn't make the question dumb.Christoph Katzer - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
People just need to understand that at the moment it's just still too expensive to build units around this wattage that have 90%+ efficiency. You don't wanna pay $150 for a 500W PSU because you can run your normal one for years and ending up with the same price.MadMan007 - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
Fair enough, at least that's a reason and not saying 'dumb comment' :) The 82+ line is nearly as efficient and does have some low power options so Enermax may feel they already have that segment filled.Over time the design changes that increase efficiency should trickle down yea?
Rezurecta - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
That was for iwodoThe0ne - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
I'm not sure you know what YOU'RE talking about making that comment to Iwodo, unless of course you prefer to stick to your configuration that requires more than 850W. In which case, carry on.700W for my configuration.
IP35 Pro with Q6600@3.2GHz, 4Gig, 9800GX2, 2 DVDRW, 5 Hard Drives, 6 internal Fans for the case, misc USB devices
So I don't know about you but I think his question is very valid. The dumbest I think would be someone who came up with the question afterward not thinking more about what the other person was addressing.
legoman666 - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
Lol, you're out of your mind if you think your system uses anywhere near 700w. Buy a Kill-A-Watt and report back some real usage numbers. I imagine it's closer to 300-350w @ full load.gochichi - Monday, November 10, 2008 - link
I know right? I've been "bad" and left my little Inspiron 530 with the power supply that came with it and I'm running a Radeon 4850 (fairly power hungry, but not wacko hungry) in it and it runs perfectly. At most it's rated at 350W and it's a Quad-core system with some other goodies.The way I see it, burning DVDs, playing Blu-rays, playing games are some of the most energy consuming things you can do. However, you do either one or the other. I'm sure my system would have power issuues if I played Crysis, burned DVDs and watched a blu-ray all at one time. But you know what? My system, though it's beefy can't handle those things at one time anyway, so who cares.
This powersupply is super nice though. Over the top? Yes. But it's so nice it just doesn't matter. This guy is for systems running Raptors and X-fire and all that stuff. Even if you're not running that stuff though, it's perfectly quiet at loads of 500W or below. So even when you're not pushing it, it's still classy. It's like a Corvette cruising at 65MPH, it's still awesome.
Big thumbs up to this power supply. Expensive junk is bad, but really good stuff for $300.00 is alright by me. Not for me, but if you own it... I'm kind of jealous.
The people at the top end have to have a power supply, and I think this is it for them.
The0ne - Friday, November 7, 2008 - link
The 9800GX2 video card alone already requires a minimum of 580W. How am I out of my mind for paying heed to the requirements? Do you mean to implied that I'm a sucker for believing all power supply ratings and I should instead do my own measurements when finding a power supply? Tell me, do you do this when selecting your own components?The only reason I bought the 700W was because my Nfinity 600W was not efficient enough to run the system after I installed the video card. So while the power efficiency might be low, I still need a ADVERTISED power supply of 700W+
Maybe you're psychic?