Enermax Revolution 85+ High Efficiency PSU
by Christoph Katzer on November 6, 2008 4:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Introduction
We first received a sample of the Revolution 85+ about two months ago. Enermax was going to launch the product much earlier, but a sudden change in plans created some delays. During the past couple weeks, we've had a chance to play around with final hardware, which has been quite fun. There are some new innovations inside this PSU, and in fact the inside looks totally different from what we've seen in the past. Enermax now includes DC-to-DC circuitry to create all of the lower voltage rails, something normally done with a transformer. DC-to-DC technology is nothing new since we've already seen it in several other units, but the approach Enermax took isn't quite the same as other vendors, which we will see later. Note that some of the images for this article come from Enermax marketing, including photos of the packaging material since that wasn't ready in time for this review.
The appearance of our first sample was similar to previous tested models like the Infiniti or Galaxy. In fact, this power supply was originally going to be branded Galaxy 2 before Enermax chose the Revolution moniker. The original came in a gunmetal color with a golden fan-grille installed over the huge 135mm fan; all of that changed with the latest version, which will finally hit the market.
In typical Enermax fashion, the company equipped this power supply with a massive modular cabling system that can satisfy pretty much any need. Some critics will say that modular cables can cause problems with high-performance power supplies, but during testing Enermax still manages to reach very high efficiency with stable voltages.
The Revolution 85+ series comes in four different wattages: 850W, 950W, 1050W, and 1250W -- although the last will only be available for 230VAC (i.e. Europe). Today we will be looking at the 1050W model, the ERV1050EWT. The feature list is impressive, with six 12V rails, no-load operation (which will be important for future hybrid power GPUs), power saving modes for upcoming CPUs, high efficiency, and all outputs rated at 50°C.
The six 12V rails are each rated at 30 amps, although Enermax has almost certainly set the OCP a little higher, i.e. 35 amps. There is more than enough power to connect the most demanding graphics cards, a highly overclocked processor, plenty of hard drives, and still have room to spare. 12V1 delivers power to the 24-pin ATX connector; 12V2 powers both the 4/8-pin and 8-pin EPS connectors; 12V3 is for the first and second graphics card connectors; 12V4 handles the first 12-pin socket and peripheral sockets 1, 2, and 3; 12V5 gets the second and third 12-pin sockets; and last, 12V6 is for the fourth 12-pin socket and the remaining peripherals. The distribution is very good and nobody should experience any overloads with today's hardware. The 3.3V and 5V are both rated at only 25A, although this is still more than sufficient for modern systems. The standby 5V rail is stated at 5A, which is massive compared to many other power supplies, but it's necessary in order to comply with the EPS12V regulations in version 2.92.
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xaris106 - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
sorry if my english are not good. its not my first language.Aside from that i know what a kilowatt and losses are. I`m not saying they did something wrong. I just wanted some more info on the matter for the pros and cons...
araczynski - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
i suppose they're putting all that tech into the very high end market for the same reason as all other techs do; its easy to charge an extra premium (above the normal premium) from those buyers.sooner or later the technology will trickle down into the 'normal' market, where there is more serious volume.
but that's alright, the very high end market just ends up paying our share of the R&D costs that get passed on to them, instead of us.
'bleeding edge' or something they call it? 'bleeding' green :)
JarredWalton - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
The real problem is trying to get all of the necessary parts into a "reasonable" PSU, like something in the 600W or lower range for example. I'd guess they probably put around $100-$150 worth of parts and components into this design, making it fit for the high-end but not much else. If you want to sell 500W PSUs, pricing needs to be below $100 for sure to be competitive, and it's just not all that practical to get there with top-end components (IMO).Keep in mind that most people run PSUs at around 50% load if they want peak efficiency, so this PSU is really ideal for anyone running a ~500W system. GTX 280 SLI with an overclocked quad-core would be just about right I think... if you have enough extra HDDs. That it *can* run anything from 200W to 950W with 85% efficiency (and even beyond if you use 230VAC and want to overload the PSU) is extremely impressive.
Phew - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
"When I first saw the filtering stage, I asked the representatives at Enermax if CWT is the ODM"I consider myself pretty savvy about computer hardware, and I have two engineering degrees (mechanical), but that sentence was meaningless to me.
If you are going to use multiple obscure acronyms in one sentence, please at least include links to what they stand for and some description. It shouldn't take an electrical engineering degree to understand an article on a 'mainstream' computer hardware website.
yeti514 - Friday, November 7, 2008 - link
I don't know about this PSU, but the PSUs in the link below sure look like some Thermaltake units that were made by CWT to me.http://www.enermaxusa.com/catalog/product_info.php...">http://www.enermaxusa.com/catalog/produ...sCsid=e8...
nevbie - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
Channel Well Technologies (company..)Original Design Manufacturer (..which was the manufacturer)
Or along those lines.
Note that this is a mainstream enthusiast computer hardware website. =P
Phew - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
When your computer hardware website has a power supply review listed right next to a digital camera review and a Guitar Hero article, that is about as 'mainstream' as it gets.Thanks for the acronym explanation
petersterncan - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
I will never buy this line of PSUs unless they came out with a 300-350W model.The systems I build use on-board graphics, on-board audio, one HD, one energy efficient CPU and one optical drive. Fully configured, the systems I build for myself only use around 110 watts. Anything over 350W results in wasted electricity.
Look at the minimum power consumption and efficiency at low power draws! That's the most relevant info for me when selecting a PSU.
Calin - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
You can have in USA electrical power on 240V. And the power source will go just as well at 220/230V of Europe as with 240Vstrikeback03 - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
Problem would probably be getting the proper cable for the US. Might have to make it yourself.