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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 today we'll
be looking at their latest product, the Liberty PSU.
Unlike previous Enermax offerings, the Enermax Liberty
EL620AWT 620W PSU is a modular power supply, meaning you only hook
up the cables that you need. Along with creating a cleaner interior
setup, modular power supplies typically mean cooler setups as with
fewer cables, less airflow is impeded.
While it isn't the case with all modular units we've
reviewed, in our experience nothing beats a solid "standard"
PSU. Modular PSUs add an additional connection point between the
power supply and your peripherals, which mean one more failure point,
and if the connection contacts aren't secure, the power is not as
clean as it could be. Will this be the case for the Liberty? Read
on and find out.
Enermax Liberty EL620AWT 620W PSU
The Liberty EL620AWT arrived neatly packed within
Enermax's standard rectangular packaging. Inside, the PSU was wrapped
tightly in protective bubble wrap, and the power cables were stuffed
into their own compartments in a rather fancy (fancy for a PSU package
anyhow) nylon duffle bag. As everyone knows, duffle bags score big
with the chicks, so feel free to toss out that pocket protector
you normally put your pens in and impress the office receptionist
with this. Add the lanyard, and you can wear the bag around your
neck like a stud!
Along with the PSU, there is a user manual, power
cord, case badge, and four installation screws included in the package.
Despite the 620W power rating, the Liberty EL620AWT
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.
As with many of their PSUs, compared with some other brand PSUs
I've handled this past year, the Enermax is one of the heavier ones.
While it's by no means a law, heavier PSUs tend to equal higher
quality as larger heatsinks aid in the cooling. The PSU fully supports
ATX 12V V 2.2, and is approved under Intel's power specifications.
Furthermore, the Liberty is convertible, meaning you can adapt it
for BTX based systems.
To improve reliability to your PC operation, the Liberty
EL620AWT is an Active PFC and features two independent 12V rails;
one for your motherboard and processor, and the other for fans and
drives. Each DC Output maxes out as 22A, which is higher than the
Enermax EG701AX we've looked at previously. In addition, other safety
features include Over Voltage, Load, Current and Temperature protection.
Cooling is handled by a single 120mm fan. The larger fan negates
the need for two or more smaller fans and will run much quieter
as a result. Depending on the fan setup, cooling may not be as good,
but this is somewhat addressed by the honeycomb grill on the rear
of the PSU. We're pretty big fans (no pun intended) of this setup
as the Liberty EL620AWT ran quietly during our testing and the heat
seemed to be under control.
The Liberty EL620AWT features braided cables for protecting
and shielding the power cables. The cables pre-attached to the PSU
are the main 24-pin (20+4) ATX connection, fan monitoring plug and
+12V cable. There are eight more connections for the modular cables,
broken up into two parts. The six black connections are designed
for your main peripherals, such as hard drives, fans and optical
components. The remaining two connections are for the PCI Express
graphics power, compatible with both SLI and CrossFire.
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Enermax supplies all the cables you need for the PSU, which include;
2 x PCI-E cables, 2 x SATA/Floppy cables (supporting up to 8 SATA
drives and two floppy drives total), 2 x SATA/IDE cables (basically
4 SATA connections and 4 standard 4-pin Molex), and one Molex cable
(4 connections total). The dual SATA and dual Molex cables are Enermax's
"Eternity System", which maximizes flexibility in system
design. All the Molex connections also feature Enermax's patented
Easy Plug which makes cables easier to detach.
Testing
MSI P4N Diamond: Intel Pentium 4 560, 2GB Corsair
DDR2 8000UL, 2 x Seagate 400GB, Seagate 120GB, 2 x MSI 7800GTX,
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 Enermax EG701AX, 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.
Temperatures
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 56°C for the Enermax EG701AX,
53°C on the Cooler Master, 59°C on the X-Connect and 54°C
for the Liberty EL620AWT. Right off the bat, the Liberty EL620AWT
is slightly cooler than the Enermax EG701AX,
though the Cooler Master still beats it by 1°C.
Idle
|
+3.3v
|
+5v
|
+12v
|
+12v
|
| Liberty EL620AWT |
3.30
|
5.11
|
12.06
|
12.09
|
| Enermax EG701AX |
3.30
|
5.08
|
12.07
|
12.06
|
| Ultra
X-Connect |
3.20
|
4.95
|
11.85
|
N/A
|
| CM
RealPower |
3.26
|
5.01
|
12.01
|
12.03
|
Load
|
+3.3v
|
+5v
|
+12v
|
+12v
|
| Liberty EL620AWT |
3.29
|
5.05
|
12.02
|
12.01
|
| Enermax EG701AX |
3.27
|
5.02
|
11.98
|
11.95
|
| Ultra
X-Connect |
3.16
|
4.92
|
11.72
|
N/A
|
| CM
RealPower |
3.26
|
5.00
|
11.96
|
11.97
|
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 PSUs and the 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
|
| Liberty EL620AWT |
3.25
|
5.02
|
12.00
|
11.99
|
| Enermax EG701AX |
3.24
|
5.01
|
11.94
|
11.93
|
| Ultra
X-Connect |
3.10
|
4.90
|
11.42
|
N/A
|
| CM
RealPower |
3.21
|
4.98
|
11.90
|
11.90
|
All the PSUs lost a bit of power, but not enough
to cause any problems at all, with the exception of the X-Connect
while shut down twice during our tests. We were not able to duplicate
the exact instance where it failed as it seemed to be completely
random.
Final
Words
Enermax
has entered the modular PSU market in a big way as the Liberty EL620AWT
did very well in our tests and finished on top in the tests that
count. While were were not able to stress the PSU to the max, we
feel our setup falls in line in what would be considered "high-end"
and certainly there are a few of you with somewhat similar systems
so we're pretty confident the Liberty would be suitable for those
setups.
Build
quality is excellent, and the braided cables are a nice touch. The
6-pin approach is a good idea as it makes for a more secure connection,
and the Easy Plug design makes removing them from peripherals a
snap. The only complaint we have about the cables is that they are
quite stiff and can be difficult to route or hide in cramped cases.
Cooling
ability is decent, as the case temperatures didn't seem to miss
the second fan found in dual fan PSUs. Since the Liberty EL620AWT
uses only one 120mm fan, noise levels were low.
The
power is the real story here though, and the Liberty EL620AWT delivers.
Dual rails are a requirement from us for PSUs these days, especially
with the popularity of water cooling units, and the Liberty handled
our setup with aplomb.
Pros:
Dual +12v rails, reliable power, Active PFC, plenty of voltage related
protection measures, SLI ready.
Cons:
Braided cables difficult to route in smaller cases.
Bottom
Line: With more connections many people will need, we think
the Liberty EL620AWT should be on your short list if you're in need
of a newer, or "bigger" power supply. If your SLI equipped
FX-57 or Pentium 4 Extreme Edition crashes hard because of the 300W
jobber you're still using, don't come crying to us.
Hit
us up in the Forums
if you have any questions.
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