Enermax is a company many of you are already familiar with, as we have reviewed a few of their products recently. Everyone who builds or upgrades systems is familiar with Enermax as one of a handful of companies that build high quality PSUs (power supply) for a wide variety of applications. What most people don't know is that Coolergiant is the subsidiary of Enermax directly responsible for the PSUs.
"Coolergiant Computers, Inc., is the subsidiary of Enermax Technology Corporation in Taiwan. Our ultimate goal here in the U. S. is to provide a total customer satisfaction to our valuable customers in Northern America.
Enermax Technology, found in 1990, has been engaged in the design, manufacture, and sales of various switching power supplies and industrial & server computer cases for 14 years. Being the headquarters of Enermax Group, Enermax Technology becomes a global enterprise with 9 branches and 13 agents/distributors world-wide with annual sales volume of more than US$70 million, and is scheduled to go public in Taiwan this year.
Our main products lines are switching power supplies, PC cases, industrial PC cases, pedestal and tower server cases, case fans, mobile racks and other peripherals. We are constantly evaluating the latest market trend and movement. This approach enables us to work closely with vendors to serve customers future requirement." - Coolergiant
Today, HardwareLogic takes a look at a 1000W power supply from Enermax/Coolergiant, the EGA1000EWL.
When I sat down to write this review, I first thought that 1000W power supplies were an extravagance that no one needed. With AMD and Intel both preaching power conservation with their latest products, big and beefy PSUs seemed to be overkill. Then, I used the OuterVision Extreme PSU Calculator to fashion the most power consuming system I could and barely broke 520W "Recommended" in their application, and I'd consider my system to be fairly "high end". But, however energy efficient systems might be NOW, consider where we'll be in a year when dual will be replaced by quad, as in quad graphics cards and quad core processors - 1000W may soon be not so crazy, or extravagant.
Lets take a quick look at the specs of the Enermax EGA1000EWL power supply before moving on to a closer look at the unit and its impressive features.
The EGA1000EWL features five independent 12V rails, 1000W of total power, 1100W of peak power, and several other impressive features. Five 12V rails??!!! It seems like only yesterday that dual 12V rails were the "in" thing. With SLI/Quad SLI/Crossfire and energy hogs like them becoming more and more popular, the more 12V rails, seemingly the better.
Removing the Enermax EGA1000EWL from its packaging, I immediately noticed that it's a beast, weighing well over 9 pounds, and measuring 150mm(W) x 220mm(D) x 86mm(H). The EGA1000EWL is surely going to limit its options with its inability to fit comfortable in many cases (as an example, I had to modify my Cooler Master Stacker 830 to get it to fit). Before considering this PSU, make sure that your enclosure can handle an extremely large power supply.
Size aside, the EGA1000EWL is a great looking PSU featuring a gloss black finish and wonderfully sleeved cables. The word "GALAXY" is screened onto the sides, with a label noting the power specs adorning the top.
Removing the cover exposes an extremely clean, and well laid out interior that explains both this PSU's efficiency, and large size. Remember to never remove the cover from your PSU, its dangerous and it voids your warranty.
CABLING
Included in the packaging is a fairly small user's manual which you will need (read the manual before setting up the PSU). You'll also get a variety of additional cables for the modular aspect of the power supply, a nice Velcro sealed nylon case for storing the cables, and a power cable. While sleeved cables is an excellent touch that every power supply should feature, the EGA1000EWL's sleeving job is excellent, allowing the cables to maintain excellent flexibility while keeping the wires from being any issue during cable routing.
The natively attached cables of the EGA1000EWL are as follows:
As you can see, some people won't even need to take advantage of the modular aspect of this PSU as the natively attached cables provide three 4-pin molex, three SATA, and two PCI-E connections.
THE FEATURES
Now that we've taken a look at the unit, lets look at some of the features of the EGA1000EWL that make it an attractive option to those building a high end, and power hungry system.
1000 WATTS Continuous Power, 900 WATTS combined 12V Power
More power than any current system can consume, and more than likely more than any system should need in the foreseeable future.
24/7 operation @ 50°C
Non-Stop full power @ 50°C by design and components
Enermax's superior design and use of high quality parts mean the EGA1000EWL is designed for 24/7 usage @ 50C, which ensures stability and higher power efficiency
WORLD’S FIRST FIVE 12V rails
Meets 2007 EPS12V specification for next-generation systems
The new revision requires a fifth 12V rail to keep high end systems stable and allows TRIPLE-QUAD + 24 support (single, dual, and quad CPUS and GPUS, as well as up to 24 drives)
TRIPLE QUAD + 24
QUAD CPU, QUAD CORE, QUAD GRAPHICS, and up to 24 DRIVES......Simultaneously!
As the box shows, this thing is so bad ass, it can handle quad processors, quad graphics cards, and up to 24 drives......no seriously!!!
80-85% EFFICIENCY @ 20-100% load for the smallest electricity bills
(Formula: (power out/efficiency)x24/1000=kWh/dayx365=kWh/year)
(GALAXY: (500x0.85)x24/1000=14.112kWh/dayx365=5150.88kWh/year
For those of us who are math deficient (notice I said US), a great explanation of efficiency is how what percent of the power run through the power supply is actually used, as opposed to that dissipated through the heat sinks and exhaust. If the Enermax EGA1000EWL is 85% efficient between 20-100% load, that means that a paltry of the energy is wasted, an outstanding ratio considering the Enermax EGA1000EWL is a 1000W PSU
MODULAR CONNECTORS
Maximum SATA or IDE/SCSI drives (21+3 of free choice)
The table above explains the modular cable assignment in depth, as the EGA1000EWL is by no means a simple plug n play affair - make sure that you assign the modular cables correctly to reap the full benefits of the features this monster provides. Each connector on the back of the PSU is clearly marked, and the cables themselves are keyed to help you use the correct plugs (the PCI-E plugs are also a maroon color while the others are simply black).
SILENT & COOL
Cooled by 13.5 & 80mm dual fans
The EGA1000EWL features a pair of fans to optimize cooling, and therefore operation of the unit. On the bottom, the EVA1000EWL uses a 13.5cm fan to draw air up from the case interior, up through the PSU's circuitry, and then out through the 80mm fan on the rear.
POWER GUARD
Four alert modes on PSU status with reset button
* When Power Guard starts to beep under abnormal situations, you can press the red reset button near the LED light to temporarily disable the internal buzzer. When this happens, Enermax suggests you turn off the computer and perform a system check. If after performing the system check the PSU continues beeping, contact Enermax immediately.
**The PSU mainly follows EPS12V PSU design guidelines and has minimum load requirements. If you try to test the system with a load of less than 50W, the Power Guard will activate an alert and will possibly shut down the PSU.
I tested the Power Guard under a variety of circumstances, and during each, it performed as advertised. First, I unplugged the system, and blocked the 80mm rear fan with a plastic pen, Once the system was turned back on the PSU began beeping, due to the 80mm fan failing to operate correctly. Then, I unplugged the 24 pin power connector from the motherboard, again the PSU beeped, then shut itself down.
ACTIVE PFC & UNIVERSAL AC IN
Run your GALAXY from 90-264VAC with automatic adjustment and active power factor correction
"In Active PFC, a boost converter is inserted between the bridge rectifier and the main input capacitors. The boost converter attempts to maintain a constant DC bus voltage on its output while drawing a current that is always in phase with and at the same frequency as the line voltage. Another switchmode converter inside the power supply produces the desired output voltage from the DC bus. This approach requires additional semiconductor switches and control electronics, but permits cheaper and smaller passive components. It is frequently used in practice. Due to their very wide input voltage range, many power supplies with active PFC can automatically adjust to operate on AC power from about 100 V (Japan) to 240 V (UK)."- Wikipedia
OCP- Over Current Protection
OLP- Over Load Protection
OVP- Over Voltage Protection
SCP- Short Circuit Protection
UVP- Under Voltage Protection
To put the Enermax EGA1000EWL to the test (to the best of our ability), I constructed the most energy consuming system I could possibly muster, then overclocked the components. All voltages were recorded using our trusty EXTECH 411 TRUE RMS Multimeter, which has served us incredibly well over the past two years
A lot has been made of benchmarking methodology lately. Almost every power supply review on the web (ours included) is simple, to say the least. Like everyone else (except for the awesome people at SilentPCReview.com) we focus on a unit's features, its overall power, the 12V rails, cabling and cable length, and when it comes to benchmarking, voltages at idle and load
When testing a power supply, we focus our attention on the +3.3V, +5V, and +12V rails. The ATX specification allows a 5% variance in either direction, but the closer these rails stay to their voltage rating, the better. Equally important, if not more so, is whether or not these rails remain stable or have a tendency to jump around. For example, we'd much rather have a power supply whose +12V rail remains at a constant 11.90V (well within the 5% variance allowed) over one that measures +12V on the nose but repeatedly fluctuates.
| CPU |
- AMD FX-60 Toledo Dual Core Processor
|
| Motherboard |
- MSI K8N Diamond Plus Motherboard
|
| Memory |
- 2GB G.Skill PC3200
(DDR400 @ 2-3-2-5-1T 2.7V) |
| Graphics |
- Two eVGA 79000GTX in SLI
(Core-650 / Memory- 1600) |
| Hard Drives |
- Two Western Digital 150GB Raptor HDD
- One Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB HDD
|
| Cooling |
- Zalman CNPS9500-AM2
- Four 120mm Thermaltake Thermalblade fans
|
| Optical Drives |
|
To test the Enermax EGA1000EWL, we'll measure idle and load voltages at our FX-60 @ stock 2.6GHz (13x200) and 1.4 V-Core, and then retest when overclocked to 3.0GHz (15x200) and a 1.55 V-Core. All testing will be performed with a multimeter using our very own Jonathan Ng's
PSU Testing Guide as a reference.
Just as I was afraid of when starting this article, I couldn't build anything that would really challenge the Enermax EGA1000EWL. It looked at my system, and simply laughed it off, refusing to even break a sweat when the system was pushed as far as it could possibly go.
Is this a bad thing? Not even close, everyone should have a PSU they can simply install and forget about for 2-3 years. Does everyone need this much power? Hell no...I honestly think this bad boy is meant for a select few are running dual core processors, high end SLI or Crossfire cards, and at the minimum a RAID5 array or at least 4 HDD.
| Segment |
Score |
Comments |
| Feature-Set |
8/10 |
- 1000W of power, Five 12V rails, Active PFC, Power Guard.....more features than anyone knows what to do with
|
| Cables and Connections |
20/20 |
- Hard to imagine a situation not covered by the selection of included cables
- Great sleeving job does not take away from the cable flexibility
- Modular design and excellent cable length should handle any case configuration
|
| Power |
17/20 |
- 1000W total / 1100W peak power
- Five individual 12V rails offering 17A is cause for concern (future proof). I'd like to see at the minimum 20A on each rail
|
| Performance |
20/20 |
- Yeah....I literally threw everything I had at the EGA1000EWL, and it laughed at me, called me names, and beat up my dog....but seriously, what would you expect of a 1000W PSU from Enermax
|
| Cooling and Noise |
10/10 |
- Excellent noise management. The 80mm and 13.5cm fans are silent during idle, and damn quiet during load operation
|
| Warranty and Support |
10/10 |
- A 3 yr warranty, excellent website thats easy to navigate, and great customer service.
|
| Price / Value |
7/10 |
- Pricey... $349 recommended retail, the Enermax EGA1000EWL will definitely be limited to only the crowd that absolutely needs the power it provides
|
Our Recommendation
The Enermax EGA1000EWL is catering to a small audience, mainly those running the biggest and baddest systems. When you consider this power supply is not targeted at the casual or mainstream user, it isn't overpriced or as extravagant as you might initially believe. I wouldn't recommend this much power to just anyone, but if you are building a high end multi processor server, or trying to power the baddest gaming rig created, this power supply definitely deserves your consideration
Other Reviews Of Note
Its always nice to have more than one opinion on a component before you spend your hard earned money. For one, We may see something others missed, or vice versa. As with all reviews published at HardwareLogic, we'll not only give you our recommendation, but also point out some reviews from some other great sites around the web.
Guru3D.com
ProClockers.com
