300W to 450W: 20 Power Supplies on the Test Bench
by Christoph Katzer on December 31, 2008 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Enermax Liberty Eco 400W
Enermax has refurbished its older but very successful Liberty series and is now calling it the Liberty Eco. There has also been a bit of cost cutting on the components, but according to Enermax the performance is still the same. We had the Liberty in our labs already a little while back and it performed well. The appearance is still the same as Enermax tries to keep the gunmetal finish (the Liberty Eco is rather black) together with the golden fan grille as their corporate identity. The power supply comes with cable management, though note that the pictures are taken from the 500W version.
The inside doesn't really show anything new since it's a typical Enermax layout. The input filtering stage is as in most cases on a small sister PCB located at the AC jack. The primary side carries a Hitachi cap with 330µF and 400V. The heatsinks are rather small but still big enough to handle the heat for such a lower wattage unit.
Enermax brings the only power supply in this roundup with two 6/8-pin PEG connectors, which is great news for low and medium SLI/CrossFire setups. There are five SATA and five Molex connectors on three cable harnesses. Enermax likes to mix the connectors on each harness so that some people need only one harness to power up hard drives and optical drives. The 12V connector comes with 8-pins but splits in half if you only need four of them.
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7Enigma - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
That is a heck of a lot of work for this article and we appreciate it immensely! Between this article and the upcoming mid-range builders guide (I'm begging...please get it out asap) you have reaffirmed for me this is the #1 site.Thanks again.
TheDoc9 - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
The breakdown of the cable connectors and the build quality descriptions were helpful. The power noise charts look useful as well.mino - Monday, January 12, 2009 - link
Copy that, one of the best PSU roundups around.magreen - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
We definitely appreciate the roundup. It addresses our needs as consumers. I wish you'd add more info about the Antec Earthwatts 430 though... it's one of the most popular PSUs on the forums here and always shows up for cheap in the hot deals section, often bundled with an Antec case. Wish you'd give us more details on its efficiency, ripple, and your overall take. I don't think you actually said anything about its performance at all. Thanks!OddJensen - Monday, January 5, 2009 - link
Isn't there a Delta made version of the 430 as well?Christoph Katzer - Monday, January 5, 2009 - link
Yes which we didn't have.Christoph Katzer - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.a...">http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.a...Here's the original review from a year ago. Even though I didn't mention it in the conclusion I think you have a great comparison with the respective graphics towards the end. :)
donjuancarlos - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
Thanks for this article. I am one of those who does modest OCing and no SLI, and this article was pertinent for me.eetnoyer - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 - link
No temperatures at load? I would think that temps at 100% load for each unit shouldn't be too much. Just as a worst-case thing.