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Most of you are probably familiar with Enermax. Long
time makers of some high quality power supplies, they've also been
offering cases and front panels for quite some time. Power supply
units (PSUs) are their bread and butter though, and their latest
not only packs in a lot of power, but it also addresses the issue
of noise, as well as cooling your system after the power is turned
off.
The Enermax EG701AX-VE-SFMA24P we'll be looking at
today features a number of items that enthusiasts will be happy
to see. Along with fan control, PCI Express and the latest power
requirements by Intel and AMD are supported. The PSU is an Active
PFC supported unit, and has Over Voltage/Load/Current/Temperature
protection. You can read the rest of the specifications by clicking
on this link on Coolergiant Computers Inc.'s website. For those
of you who did not already know, Coolergiant are an US subsidiary
of Enermax.
Enermax EG701AX-VE-SFMA24P 600W PSU
The EG701AX arrived in what I would imagine is Enermax's
standard rectangular packaging. One item that caught my eye was
Enermax's proclamation of SLI ready. The EG701AX is the first PSU
we've come across with two 6-pin PCI Express connections for the
latest video cards. Along with the PSU, there is a user manual,
power cord, case badge, and four installation screws included in
the package.
Despite the 600W power rating, the EG701AX is a standard
sized ATX PSU. Unless you're using one of those low profile cases,
you shouldn't have any problems with the power supply. Compared
with some other PSUs I've handled recently, the Enermax is one of
the heavier ones we've handled. The PSU fully supports ATX 12V V
2.0, and is approved under Intel's and AMD's power specifications.
To improve reliability to your PC operation, the EG701AX
features two independent 12V rails; one for your motherboard and
processor, and the other for fans and drives. Each DC Output maxes
out as 18A, which may seem average but keep in mind that they are
dedicated on each rail.
Cooling is handled by a couple of Smart Fans that continue to run
for 2 minutes after shut down. The idea of course is to vent out
any heat buildup, and extend the life of your parts (referred to
as SFMA by Enermax). Since I do not have quantitative proof that
parts dies quicker without this, it's hard to give it a ringing
endorsement, but it's a nice feature just in case you have poor
heat dissipation in general.
The PSU is equipped with one 80mm on the rear, and one 92mm fan
on the bottom of the unit. The 80mm fan is controlled either automatically
based on your BIOS settings, or manually via a rheostat control
on the rear of the unit.
The EG701AX features a braided system of protecting
and shielding the power cables. According to Enermax, their "Ring
Core" prevents electromagnetic pulses leaking from the power
supply to appliances that are being attached to the same power source
such as an AC wall plug.
We've already mentioned the dual PCI Express connections on the
PSU, and in addition to those cables, there is a 24-pin main power
connector, as well as a 4-pin +12V power connector. Rounding things
out are; 4 SATA power connectors, seven 4-pin Molex, 2 floppy, one
fan monitor and a 24 to 20 main power adapter (according to the
Coolergiant website, but no such adapter was included with our unit).
Testing
MSI 915P: Intel Pentium 4 560, 2GB Corsair DDR2,
2 x Seagate 160GB, Seagate 120GB, MSI X800XT, MSI 16X DL, AOpen
CDRW 52X, Koolance PC3-720SL.
To load up the system, we run Prime95 run for 60
minutes, with Folding @ Home running in the background, as well
as ripping Jet Li's Hero DVD to the Seagate RAID setup. We also
ran a continuous loop of VirusScan and a looping demo of 3DMark05.
Voltages were monitored with ABRA DM-9700 multimeter. The comparison
PSUs are the Ultra X-Connect 500W PSU and Cooler Master's RealPower
450W. The P4 560 will be clocked at 18x215 for all testing. All
the power supplies were plugged into a Belkin UPS (separately
for each test) for the first set of tests.
Most PSUs have an ideal operating temperature of
about 40°C, so we turned up the thermostat to 30°C (max
in our house), disabled the case fans and set the Koolance liquid
cooler to a low enough fan setting to keep the system stable at
3.87GHz. According to MBM, the internal case temperature got to
about ~51°C, and a thermal probe attached a heatsink inside
the PSUs read 53°C for the Enermax, 51°C on the Cooler
Master and 55°C on the X-Connect.
Idle
|
+3.3v
|
+5v
|
+12v
|
+12v
|
| Enermax EG701AX |
3.31
|
5.09
|
12.08
|
12.07
|
| Ultra
X-Connect |
3.23
|
5.01
|
12.02
|
N/A
|
| CM
RealPower |
3.28
|
5.02
|
12.02
|
12.02
|
Load
|
+3.3v
|
+5v
|
+12v
|
+12v
|
| Enermax EG701AX |
3.29
|
5.03
|
11.99
|
11.99
|
| Ultra
X-Connect |
3.21
|
4.96
|
11.76
|
N/A
|
| CM
RealPower |
3.28
|
5.01
|
11.97
|
11.98
|
While the Belkin regulated the power drawn from
the wall outlet, you'll still need a decent PSU to provide clean
and reliable power to your PC. Both Enermax and Cooler Master
provided enough juice to the system, while the X-Connect struggled
a little more with the 12v rail, but not enough where the system
was unreliable.
Wall Socket Test
Living in a new home, most of our wires are in pretty
good shape. I did want to see how the PSUs would react plugged
into a wall socket though (no power bar or UPS) and the other
socket with a second PC equipped with a 21" CRT drawing power
from a power bar. I managed to pack two additional 17" monitors
to the power bar, as well as a 4.1 Logitech speaker set. I turned
on a second 19" monitor plugged into another socket which
shares the wiring circuit and ended with these results.
Load
|
+3.3v
|
+5v
|
+12v
|
+12v
|
| Enermax EG701AX |
3.26
|
5.01
|
11.94
|
11.95
|
| Ultra
X-Connect |
3.12
|
4.94
|
11.43
|
N/A
|
| CM
RealPower |
3.24
|
5.00
|
11.91
|
11.90
|
Both the Enermax and Cooler Master lost a bit of
power, but not enough to cause any problems at all. We've changed
our testing methodology since we've last looked at the X-Connect
and it seems that it is having some problems with the increased
load and interference we're putting on it.
Final
Words
Enermax
PSUs have always been personal favorites of mine prior to opening
up VL. We haven't had to use too many since then as I never had
a shortage of PSUs coming through the door. When Coolergiant offered
up the EG701AX, I figured, "Yeah, I could use a 600W unit eventually,"
but I was pleasantly surprised with the number of features that
came with it.
Under
ideal circumstances, the 600W might seem like overkill as according
to our power reader, we only drew about 360W under full load, and
that was at peak. Still, more power available never hurts and the
PSU will only pull the amount of power it needs to operate.
Feature-wise,
the EG701AX has security measures in place to protect your system,
as well as some noise control and shielding. In terms of noise,
I found the EG701AX about as noisy as the Cooler Master when listening
right behind the PC. From 3' away, neither PSU was audible over
the water-cooling fans. For LGA775 P4 owners, the 24-pin power connection
is a nice touch (an adapter for 20-pin mobos is included) and for
nForce 4 SLI owners and future owners of VIA's DualGFX motherboard,
having a couple PCI Express connections built right into the PSU
is a nice touch.
If
there's one problem we had with the EG701AX was that the sheath
covered cables were very stiff. We had some difficulty installing
the PSU into our Lian Li V1000 case as the cables were not as easy
as non-covered cables to route through the cable management system
of the V1000.
Cooling
was in line with other PSUs we've used, but we would have preferred
120mm fans as they could be quieter while moving as much
if not more warm air. That's really only nitpicking though as the
EG701AX was good enough to earn a full-time spot in our test PC.
Pros:
Dual +12v rails, reliable power, SFMA fans, Active PF, plenty of
voltage related protection measures, SLI ready.
Cons:
120mm fans would have been our choice.
Bottom
Line: While the Enermax EG701AX-VE-SFMA24P does not have
modular cables, many reputable PSU makers will probably tell you
that ideally, you'll want cables drawn directly from the PSU to
your components for the best reliability. The EG701AX was just that;
a solid and reliable PSU with plenty of power when you need it.
Hit
us up in the Forums
if you have any questions.
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