Enermax PSUs

[ZachM]

What do you guys think of Enermax PSUs? The 460 watt one I was looking at for $85 had a lot of nice features compared to an Antec 480 watt for the same price. Does Enermax make good power supplies? They look nice, I like the fan adjustment, and the sleeving on the mobo power cable. Tell me what you think.

 

[Deathknight]

IMHO they are more about cosmetics than about pure power. I would take an Antec TP over a similar power enermax personally.

 

[FIZZ3]

Enermax power supplies are somewhat underrated around here in my opinion. They make good power supplies. Their 430W will not put out 500W, but it will do fine.

 

[Hookem]

Shucks...You can get a 530watt Fortron Source from NewEgg for 75.00 bones that would kick that Enermax right in the teeth...And the Antec will run circles around that Enermax for the same money...Or close to it......Money wise that is...

 

[larrymoencurly]

Tom's said that a 350W Enermax virtually tied with a 300W Fortron in power capacity, 389W and 390W, respectively.

I noticed that the transformer in my 350W Enermax is a bit smaller than those in my 300W Antec, MaxPower, Powmax, Fortron, and Delta PSUs, but that may not mean much because Powmax is usually considered to be pretty weak, and Fortron runs their transformers at a lower frequency, which tends to require bigger transformers for the same capacity. Also the high voltage capacitors are 680uF, compared to 560uF for my Maxpower, 680uF for my Powmax and Antec, 820uF for my Delta, and 1,000uF for my 350W Fortron.

 

[rogerdugans]

I've been out of the loop for quite a while now, but I can tell you that Enermax hasn't had a great rep for a long time.

Personally, I have had great luck with Enermax, so I would buy their stuff again, but a LOT of people have had problems; a lot more than have trouble with Antec or Fortron.

Enermax seems to have pretty shoddy quality control from what I can tell: some of their units never have ANY trouble at all and seem better than Antec Truepower or any other psu in the same price range. Unfortunately, that seems to be the exception, not the rule.
For the buck I think that Fortron is the most reliable psu in the under $100 price range.

Spend the money on a better built psu and then mod it to look how you want.

 

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

enermax do make quality psus, but they are very expensive and they won't put out a lot of wattage more than they are rated for like fortron and antec, but the amount of wattage isn't everything about a psu, how accurate and clean the power is, long term stability, pfc, & noise considerations are all factors

honestly, i've noticed more dead and troublesome antecs in the past year than enermaxs, just from friends that build their own pcs - none have trouble with their enermaxs, but antecs have died (like my bros TP430), i switched to the TP380 on my rig cause the enermax fan on the back started to click, but right now it's powering my moms rig and voltages are tight

imo, enermax psus are great psus, just expensive

if i were buying a psu at that price range, i would choose the Fortron 530w also

 

[ZachM]

Ok, thanks for the help guys. Is this the Fortron 530 you guys are talking about? Are the Fortrons decently quiet?

 

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

yeah, that's the one, i haven't had any personal experience with it but it's supposedly very quiet unless a huge load is placed on it

at that price for that type of quality in a power supply, you can always swap out the fans for Panaflo L1As if it is too loud, here is the link if you really find it to be too loud:

http://store.yahoo.com/svcompucycle/pan80.html

 

[Deathknight]

Yeah its a fairly quiet psu. As R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3 said it doesn't get loud until it gets fairly hot(heh there doesn't seem to be much of an in between point here, it just kicks into high gear if the temp gets too high). My dully rig can get some fairly high case temps, but the fan speed doesn't go up until my office gets pretty warm(ie: windows and doors shut, no air on).

 

[larrymoencurly]

Another thing I noticed on my Enermax was that the circuit board had a lot of long soldered wire leads that were long and almost touched one adjacent circuit traces. I clipped them off because a wire stub shorting probably kept my 300W Antec SmartPower that I checked from running (why it cost me nothing), but after prying up the bent-over leads and cutting the ones that seemed to touch, it's worked fine.

 

[Steven4563]

hey even my FSP 350watt is kicking most psus all over the place ive got my system running with 9 fans plus a cold cathod light and its 12V line is still at 12.98V running prime95 the 5V line and 3.3V line is still rock soild

 

[Ritalin]

Guys, what is the Antec TP or enermax equivalent for the fsp 350w (the one that comes oem with the aopen h700 series)
Ritalin

 

[CrashOveride]

I hate em, I have had about 3 of em (320w-400w) and they all sucked and gave me low voltages and their 3.3v+5v rating is a bit lower than Antec and other good brands (fortron). Also the insides are a lot less impressive, screw the second fan and fancy sleeve, get a real PSU I think. Then again some people swear by them

 

[Ritalin]

well for you it's easy and stuff, but for me AFAIK the only way of getting a FSP psu in israel is for me to either import it or buy an OEM version, and i only found one, that came with the AOpen H700 series....

 

[Steven4563]

FSP 350watt PSU are good look at my sig ive also put 1.9V threw my cpu at 2.5ghz got scared so i lowered it but the 12V line never went below 11.92 running prime95 and the 5V and 3.3V line was still solid i love this psu

at first i ordered a enermax 460watt psu and they had ran out off stock so they phoned me and asked if i wanted another so said yeah ill have the FSP 350watt with the 120mm fan and i dont look back choosing this thing

 

[Susquehannock]

As stable as this 400w Fortron is I just can't see
myself needing a new PSU for a long time to come.
Certainly not the 530w model.

Even with my 1700 above 3200 speeds, and a slew of extra
fans and lights, this 400w Fortron rarely deviates more
than 0.02v from idle to full load.
Yes, that's a max of 0.02v with a DMM on the molex.