Enermax Revolution85+ 950w Modular PSU
Introduction
Published: 30th April 2009 | Source: Enermax | Price: £195 |
Introduction
Enermax is one of those few companies in the PC scene that requires no introduction. With products such as the Galaxy 1000w and Infiniti range under their belts, Enermax has on several occasions made a profound impact on the PSU market and helped shape it into what it is today. Back in our 5-way High-End 1KW PSU roundup a short while ago I got a chance to take an early look at Enermax's successor to their ever popular Galaxy range dubbed the Revolution. With 90% efficiency, stable voltages and low noise levels it certainly lived up to its name and managed to walk away with our "Editors Choice" award.However, being a pre-production model it was hard to shake off the feeling that some elements of the unit might 'change' before it hit the mass market. With this in mind we requested that Enermax send us over a Revolution unit from their 'Retail' batch when they were available, and today that's exactly what I'm going to be taking a look at in the form of the 950W model. Below are the specs....
• 85PLUS ready! - World's first modular cable PSU series with 85-91% efficiency @ 20-100% load. Certified by 80 PLUS® organizations.
• AMD GAME! Ready and ATI CrossFireX certified - AMD® AMD GAME! Ready and ATI CrossFire X™ certified. (ENERMAX REVOLUTION85+ 950W, ERV950EWT-01, © 2007 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., ATI, The ATI logo, CrossFireX, and Radeon are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.)
• FUTURE CPU ready! - Ready for most upcoming CPU generations by 12P sockets for possible connector changes, by complying to latest EPS12V PSU design guides for compatibility & by ZERO LOAD Design for C6 state functions.
• FUTURE GPU ready! - Ready for most upcoming GPU generations by 12P sockets for possible connector changes, by six massive 12V rails for perfect load distribution & by ZERO LOAD Design for Hybrid Mode functions.
• AHD² Topology - Industry-leading “Asymmetric Hybrid DC-to-DC” topology with the world’s highest efficiency & most stable performance.
• 24/7 @ 50°C ready! - Non-Stop industrial class performance at 50°C/122°F ambient.
• HeatGuard - Keeping PSU fan running for 30-60 seconds after shut down to dissipate the remaining system heat and prolonging system lifetime.
• PowerGuard - PSU status monitor with 4-mode LED (Off / Stand-by / OK / Fail).
• SafeGuard - Industry-leading octuple protection circuitry of OCP, OVP, UVP AC, UVP DC, OPP, OTP, SIP & SCP protects your system.
• AirGuard - Patented air-inlet with optimal aero-dynamical design reducing noisy air turbulences.
• SILENT ready! - Ultra-quiet 13.5cm fan with intelligent RPM control guarantees cool performance and silent operation.
• 99% 12V Power - World's first EPS12V PSU with 99% 12V output capability.
• SERVER ready! - SSI PSDG 2009 support for latest Intel® Core™ Extreme/i7, Xeon™ and AMD® Opteron™ and SLI™ or CrossFireX™ and AMD GAME! or AMD GAME! Ultra systems and downward compatible with SSI PSDG 2008 1.0, EPS12V 2.92, 2.91, 2.8.
• DXX ready! - For PCI Express 2.0/DXX next-generation graphic cards with 6+2P (8P) PCI-E connectors.
• EMC ready! - Full-scale electromagnetic filtering protects your system against radiation interferences (CE EMC EN61204 compliance).
• AMD GAME! Ready and ATI CrossFireX certified - AMD® AMD GAME! Ready and ATI CrossFire X™ certified. (ENERMAX REVOLUTION85+ 950W, ERV950EWT-01, © 2007 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., ATI, The ATI logo, CrossFireX, and Radeon are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.)
• FUTURE CPU ready! - Ready for most upcoming CPU generations by 12P sockets for possible connector changes, by complying to latest EPS12V PSU design guides for compatibility & by ZERO LOAD Design for C6 state functions.
• FUTURE GPU ready! - Ready for most upcoming GPU generations by 12P sockets for possible connector changes, by six massive 12V rails for perfect load distribution & by ZERO LOAD Design for Hybrid Mode functions.
• AHD² Topology - Industry-leading “Asymmetric Hybrid DC-to-DC” topology with the world’s highest efficiency & most stable performance.
• 24/7 @ 50°C ready! - Non-Stop industrial class performance at 50°C/122°F ambient.
• HeatGuard - Keeping PSU fan running for 30-60 seconds after shut down to dissipate the remaining system heat and prolonging system lifetime.
• PowerGuard - PSU status monitor with 4-mode LED (Off / Stand-by / OK / Fail).
• SafeGuard - Industry-leading octuple protection circuitry of OCP, OVP, UVP AC, UVP DC, OPP, OTP, SIP & SCP protects your system.
• AirGuard - Patented air-inlet with optimal aero-dynamical design reducing noisy air turbulences.
• SILENT ready! - Ultra-quiet 13.5cm fan with intelligent RPM control guarantees cool performance and silent operation.
• 99% 12V Power - World's first EPS12V PSU with 99% 12V output capability.
• SERVER ready! - SSI PSDG 2009 support for latest Intel® Core™ Extreme/i7, Xeon™ and AMD® Opteron™ and SLI™ or CrossFireX™ and AMD GAME! or AMD GAME! Ultra systems and downward compatible with SSI PSDG 2008 1.0, EPS12V 2.92, 2.91, 2.8.
• DXX ready! - For PCI Express 2.0/DXX next-generation graphic cards with 6+2P (8P) PCI-E connectors.
• EMC ready! - Full-scale electromagnetic filtering protects your system against radiation interferences (CE EMC EN61204 compliance).
Cutting away some of the SomethingGuard this and Something Ready! that marketing bull, we can see that the Revolution 85+ has quite an impressive list of features. Already we know from experience that the unit is capable of ~90% efficiency from the pre-production testing, but Enermax actually state that this is potentially obtainable at load levels from 20-100%. The Revolution has also been designed to handle a 'ZERO LOAD' state correctly for standby situations, which may not sound like a great feat, but believe me when I say that there are some high-end PSU's out there that handle zero load situations very poorly with voltages going well outside of ATX spec.
Support for all the latest (and upcoming) hardware is also a predominant feature, with the unit supporting all of the latest EPS, SSI, CrossfireX and SLI standards. Of course Enermax are forbidden from mentioning the latter two standards in the same breath, so for this reason you will find two different revisions of the unit on their product pages. One labelled Revolution85+ Crossfire, and the other Revolution85+ SLI. A certain amount of future proofing has also been applied to the modular connector system, but we'll take a closer look at that over the next few pages.
| Enermax Revolution85+ 950W Rail Layout | ||||||||||
| DC Output | +3.3V | +5V | +12V1 | +12V2 | +12V3 | +12V4 | +12V5 | +12V6 | -12V | +5VSB |
| 25A | 25A | 30A | 30A | 30A | 30A | 30A | 30A | 0.6A | 5A | |
| Max Power | 170W | 948W | 7.2W | 25W | ||||||
| 950W (1140W Peak) | ||||||||||
Enermax have decided to split the +12v output over a total of six rails with each rail rated at 30A and a maximum load of 948W (78A) across all rails at any one time. This is often considered by enthusiasts to be a less favourable configuration than having a single +12v rail with all power directly available. Of course there are good reasons for Enermax arranging the rails in this way, and if you've ever seen a device with 78A going through it short circuiting, you'll know exactly why.
In fact safety is another area where the Revolution85+ seems to score highly. In addition to the usual over/under volt/current and short circuit safety features that are collectively named as 'SafeGuard' by Enermax, the Revolution also boasts an LED status system (PowerGuard) that gives a visual way to diagnose any PSU issues and a cooling system (HeatGuard) that continues to run the PSU fan for 30-60 seconds after system shutdown to help increase the PSU's lifespan.
Now let's take a good look at the unit...
Most Recent Comments
Yeah its a bit of a tough call really. Although the performance of the Corsair HX1000 isn't _quite_ up to the same level as the Revolution, the Corsair is a fair bit cheaper, is more generic in appearance (for those who don't have a red PC) and doesn't have any of the cable issues that the Revolution does.
The cables would be a big thing for me personally, but if you can hide them well in your rig and you want the best PSU you can get then it looks like the Enermax gets that crown.
I think £195 is a little bit more than I'd be prepared to pay for it, considering the little niggles it has. If they corrected those in some sort of a revision, it would definitely be worth it.
Goddam that's brutally expensive. Amazing, but yowsers.
Great to see the hot box really stressing them. And I totally agree about the molex thing. 6 SATA cables is plenty, 8 is overkill (who has 6 HDs?) and 12 is just ridiculous especially when it comes at the cost of molex's which work for pumps and lighting and and and.
(btw, the "discuss in the forums" bit on the last page isn't a link)
Great to see the hot box really stressing them. And I totally agree about the molex thing. 6 SATA cables is plenty, 8 is overkill (who has 6 HDs?) and 12 is just ridiculous especially when it comes at the cost of molex's which work for pumps and lighting and and and.
(btw, the "discuss in the forums" bit on the last page isn't a link)
Goddam that's brutally expensive. Amazing, but yowsers.
Great to see the hot box really stressing them. And I totally agree about the molex thing. 6 SATA cables is plenty, 8 is overkill (who has 6 HDs?) and 12 is just ridiculous especially when it comes at the cost of molex's which work for pumps and lighting and and and.
(btw, the "discuss in the forums" bit on the last page isn't a link)
Yeah I'm not quite sure what possessed them to put THAT many SATA's on there. Even for server use thats excessive. Most 2/3U rackmount servers cant hold more than 9 disks.
The ideal cable configuration in my opinion is:
2x SATA cables, one with 4 connectors, the other with 2.
4x Molex cables. two with 3 connectors, two with 2 connectors
I think they should just include basic cables, and 2 of each, and you should be able to order custom cables.
or not custom, but select from a larger range, custom lengths etc... would cost alot but worth it
or not custom, but select from a larger range, custom lengths etc... would cost alot but worth it
of course this comes out the day after i order my corsair 1000... :(
although im pretty happy with my decison because i know that the corsair has proven itself :D
although im pretty happy with my decison because i know that the corsair has proven itself :D
Woah, those Sata's do seem outrageous...
I personally think 3 per cable is just about right, since most caddies hold 3 drives, so it fits rather nicely.
Corsair still get my vote, but nice review Jim :)
I personally think 3 per cable is just about right, since most caddies hold 3 drives, so it fits rather nicely.
Corsair still get my vote, but nice review Jim :)
Terrific review so nice to see someone be critical of these PSU's honestly it makes me weep when some reviews are so one sided as have so many of this PSU.
I don't recall any other site retesting a off the shelf model and also I might be wrong but no other review picked up on the Sata Molex issue.
Thank goodness that there is somewhere we can come to get a totally unbiased review of what is really just a very good PSU, not a world beating machine that will run for the next millenium and only use 10 pence of electricity like some other sites might try to have us believe.
Thank you for the BEST review of this PSU I've ever seen and I think I "might" have read 98% of them.;)
I don't recall any other site retesting a off the shelf model and also I might be wrong but no other review picked up on the Sata Molex issue.
Thank goodness that there is somewhere we can come to get a totally unbiased review of what is really just a very good PSU, not a world beating machine that will run for the next millenium and only use 10 pence of electricity like some other sites might try to have us believe.
Thank you for the BEST review of this PSU I've ever seen and I think I "might" have read 98% of them.;)
Cheers for the feedback everyone. KimandSally I'll slip you that £20 next time I see ya lol :D
Fingers crossed they get the issues sorted. The Galaxy went through a few revisions in its time, so at least Enermax don't seem to be the kind of company to bosh out a product and then put their fingers in their ears until it goes EOL.
I'm quite surprised nowhere else picked up on these things though. Even tho I'm a picky git sometimes, these things were so glaringly obvious.
Fingers crossed they get the issues sorted. The Galaxy went through a few revisions in its time, so at least Enermax don't seem to be the kind of company to bosh out a product and then put their fingers in their ears until it goes EOL.
I'm quite surprised nowhere else picked up on these things though. Even tho I'm a picky git sometimes, these things were so glaringly obvious.
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