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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26 Comments
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meeshu - Thursday, August 2, 2007 - link
Disappointing once again to note lack of ripple data despite indication in the "Test Methodology" that ripple details would be provided for PSU reviews.Voltage output with increasing load is one consideration; cleanliness of voltage (ripple) is another issue.
poohbear - Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - link
hey can u guys review corsair's HX620/HX520 psu? They're supposed to be kickass and im just curious how they'd rate compared to the psus u've reviewed. Thanks and keep these great reviews coming!wolfman3k5 - Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - link
I'm sure that when they'll run out of stuff to write about (again), there will be a review about Corsair 520HX/620HX. Or maybe 2 years from now, who knows. They never wrote a review about the Enermax Liberty either back when it was "cool" to own one. Like I've said before, they do write PSU reviews only when they run out of stuff to write about.Cheers.
Bozo Galora - Wednesday, August 1, 2007 - link
It is precisely because of unneccessarily nasty angry posts like this, that, after 8 years, I dont post on AT forums anymore, and haven't for about 4 months so far. I just visit for the articles now. However, it seems I cant even escape this immature trash talk even in the review comments.I have been a member of many forums - ars, Hardforum, abxzone, i4memory, xbit, techreport, xtremesys etc., all for the most part friendly co-operative back and forth type situations there. But only on AT do we see the anal retentive crowd post again and again what they dont seem to understand is hurtful (to the staff in this case).
Well, I like the PSU reviews, and if I were a mod, I would ban you permanently in a heartbeat. And if you like jonny guru so much - then go to his site, and keep your big mouth shut here.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, August 1, 2007 - link
Thanks - I'm sure Christoph appreciates your comment!As for the reviews, you may have noticed that we didn't do ANY PSU reviews for a long time. Christoph is a new addition who is busily cranking out reviews. As with pretty much all of our content, we review what we're sent, and when people asked for some more reasonable PSUs he reviewed an Enermax Liberty 500W. There are, unfortunately, only so many hours in a day and so many PSUs in the lab, so I am not aware that Christoph has a 520W HX to review. Maybe he'll get one in the near future, maybe Corsair will send him something else, maybe they won't send units to Europe and we'll never get a review of one done. At some point, though, we need to establish a starting point and move forward, and that's what we're doing.
wolfman3k5 - Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - link
You all might wanna check out jonnyguru.com for a decent PSU review...yyrkoon - Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - link
I own, and think I would still prefer to own my Antec EA500 for much less. I keep hearing people putting Antec down for shoddy PSUs, but I own this EA500, and previously an Antec 450 SL, and have nothing but positive things to say about either. One of my friends however does sware by Enermax PSU's, but I think if I were to pay this much for a 2 year old(outdated) PSU, I think I would just pony up the extra for a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610 EPS12V(they are only another $40 usd . . .).Efficiency is one thing, and rock solid rails are another . . . We all know (or should) that Antec usually makes a decent PSU, Enermax does make a decent PSU, and that PC P&C(Seasonic) makes the best. Granted, anyone can put out a lemon(and sometimes that lemon is part of a 'run' that are all lemons).
piroroadkill - Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - link
The "Lemons" you refer to are pretty much all of the Antec TruePower and SmartPower PSUs due to their use of fuhjyyu capacitors on the secondary side - they have a pretty much complete failure rate - I personally own 4 antec truepower II powersupplies and so far I've opened two, and so far both have had this problem, and I'm not even slightly aloneyyrkoon - Wednesday, August 1, 2007 - link
Actually, then lemons I refer to happen with ALL namebrands, and why you would purchase a known bad PSU based on its capacitors is un-bewknownst to me ...Spikke - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
I have the 620w Liberty and have owned it for nearly 2 years now. It started out on a Gigabyte K8N SLI-Pro, 4200+ X2, 150gb Raptor, 500gb Caviar, and 2x 7800GTX in SLI. It's now powering my new rig just fine Gigabyte P35-DS3R, E6850, 150gb Raptor, 2x 500gb Caviar, and a 8800GTX. It was a great purchase and I have not had a single complaint or problem with it in nearly 2 years. I would definitily not hesitate to buy another Enermax psu.