Enermax Gold: Modu87+ and Pro87+
by Christoph Katzer on January 19, 2010 1:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
External Appearance
The new series from Enermax surprised us as we had imagine something completely different (thinking back to Computex from last year). At that time both series were equipped with a 12mm Magma fan and had a very rough sandblasted paint scheme. Enermax has returned to a more traditional look and we think the change was only for the better. In an effort to reduce costs Enermax had to keep painting to a minimum which is why these units now only come with simple black paint. On the other hand, not all the changes were an effort to reduce costs; an expensive feature for example is the 139mm shiny golden fan. It fits quite well with the design aesthetic actually and makes this new design look better than the previous one with the red Magma fan. There is one little detail that doesn't quite fit, however: the Enermax logo in the middle of the fan guard looks a little odd with the square shape over a circular fan. As always, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
The Modu87+ power supplies have the cable management jacks at the front of the unit. There are five jacks with five pins and two with twelve. The jacks have the same size and shape as on other Enermax power supplies, and since the company offers separate cables in retail packages you can use old cables even if you want to switch to a new Enermax unit. Above the usual main switch and AC input you will find a small area with a note saying "Please put ENERMAX log sticker here." You can find the Enermax sticker in the package, but why bother? Enermax explained the reason for not attaching it in the factory is that the company doesn't know what direction the user is going to mount the power supply, since various cases have the PSU at the bottom and others have it at the top. If they pre-apply the sticker, it would be upside-down for some users. If you want your system to be "just so" after assembly, this might be an important consideration.
The CordGuard
Below the AC inlet and main switch you will find something new. These two hooks belong to the newly acquired patent from Zippy and now offered by Enermax called CordGuard.
The CordGuard is nothing more than a small wire-hook attached to the power supply. Once you connect the power cord you can lift the hook up to securely fasten the cable. This makes sense in households where you have the PC standing in an open space and someone could accidently pull out the cable. It might not be a critical feature for everyone, but it will undoubtedly come in handy for some users. Enermax will be modifying all of their PSUs to include the CordGuard function going forward, but we really don't think this is necessary.
Enermax posted this video on YouTube to show real life experiences and how they could be solved with CordGuard. We think it's dangerous to let kids play behind a PC in the first place, and let's just hope they don't notice the power switch….
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rbarone69 - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
I'm sure you're room temp isnt 50 degrees celsius... (122f)rbarone69 - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
Sorry guys, didnt see you actually put it in an environment at 50c. (should read better before commenting)Just curious why you picked such a high temp to test. Do you find that there are cases this warm in rooms with no A/C?
JarredWalton - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - link
It's a stress test to simulate a hotter case; if a PSU can handle 50C, it can easily handle the more common 30-35C.Christobevii3 - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
Could you hook up some different power supplies and show the difference they draw from the wall versus these at idle and load with a basic quad core, 4GB ram, two hard drive, and 5870 setup? I'm curious if spending $50 more on a power supply is going to actually make that big of a difference over a year of computing cost wise for electricity.- Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
In most cases it's better to keep your current PSU rather than buy a new one. Sometimes if you have a very inefficient unit it's worth the upgrade. If you already have a plain jane 80plus PSU, then it would be a waste of cash to upgrade.For instance lets say your PC idles at 100w DC from the board. We will use a 500w power supply for an example.
Your plain jane 500w 80plus PSU idles at 80% efficiency and the fancy gold one idles at 87% efficiency. If you calculate it to the wall for the plain jane 100w/.8= 125w, the gold one is 100w/.87= ~115w. So we have a difference of 10w. If we calculate the idle power difference over a year at .10 per kwh then: ((10w*24*365)/1000) * .10 = $8.76 saved per year with your PC on 24/7.
If you bought a 500w gold unit say at newegg for $100 just to upgrade (and the braggin' rights) it would take you over 11 years to recoup your $100 idling your PC 24/7. I can see many peeps will proudly display their gold unit signature. :) Let's see if they keep their PSU for 10 + years!
If you were going for a new build and trying to decide whether to go for a plain jane 80 plus at $50 or the fancy gold one at $100 (for a difference of $50) it would take over 5 1/2 years to recoup your $50 idling 24/7. For some this might be reasonable depending on the price of electricity in their area, and how much they actually use their PC. If you don't use your PC a whole lot, the plain jane 80 plus will most likely be good enough.
Kibbles - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
Don't forget the extra heat needs to be cooled during summers.But I agree, the savings is small especially since most people don't idle 24/7.
jasperjones - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - link
Who pays $0.10 per kwh? Is that residential? I'm in NYC and pay ~$0.20.Calin - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - link
Upgrade only if you have issues:*the air blown by the PSU is too hot
*computer is finicky (bad quality PSU could be the reason)
*you (actually) need more wattage
*your PSU is noisy, and you want a silent one
As seen in the page, one of those expensive PSU will happily provide you 15% or more power above nominal (no mention of the efficiency though, but it should probably be higher than 80%), while a low quality power supply might give you out-of-range voltages when reaching 90% load (or maybe even less than that)
beginner99 - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - link
And not to mention that the fabrication of the PSU also consumes energy. If you throw away ur old 80% PSU that is still working to buy this one you are actually wasting energy. It's the same with cars. Manufacturing of a car (creating the steel, plasitics,...) consumes more energy than it will ever use while it's actually running. So trading in your old one for a new one is wasting energy.Main reason to buy this PSU is because of low noise. Efficient = less heat = lower fan speed = quieter. Simple.
Makaveli - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
I also would like to see a PSU round up maybe in march time frame... :)I'm still sitting pretty with my Enermax Infinity 720 Watts right now, and you do make a good poing about Enermax PSU prices not dropping much.