Installation:
Installing or replacing a power supply is fairly simple... It's basically the same process as the last time I reviewed a power supply:
Very, very easy! Total installation time about 35 minutes (if you take the time to route and tie wires correctly). Okay, we know it's easy to install, but how good does it perform?
Performance:
I'm impressed with how it performed for me. This is a difficult area, too. Since I don't have an oscilloscope to measure the consistent power under load and at idle. But, I didn't notice any audible fan slow down under high disk access load or any other operations that cause immediate draws of power from the supply. Here's the system it's powering:
|
Component |
Brand/Speed/Type |
Supplied By |
|
CPU |
Intel Pentium 3 700e @ 994 |
|
|
Peltier |
72w Leufkens P3125 Peltier Kit |
|
|
Heatsink |
Alpha P3-125 |
|
|
Heatsink Fans |
Dual Delta "Black Label" 38CFM HO 60mm |
|
|
Thermal Compound |
Arctic Silver
Small Contact Area |
|
|
Motherboard |
Asus P3V4X |
Asus |
|
Memory |
594megs Kingmax TinyBGA PC133 CAS3 |
|
|
Video Card |
Elsa Gladiac Geforce2 GTS 32meg
5.32 Nvidia Detonators |
Elsa |
|
Hard Disk |
Western Digital Expert 27.3gig UDMA 66 7200rpm |
Western Digital |
|
Hard Disk |
IBM DJNA 13.5gig UDMA 66 7200rpm |
IBM |
|
CDROM |
HP 9100i CDRW |
Hewlett Packard |
|
CDROM |
Creative Labs 6x DVD |
Creative Labs |
|
Additional Fans and Cooling |
(1) YS Tech 120mm (2) Sunon 92mm (2) Sunon 80mm (1) US Toyo 92mm (2) Baycooler 2 (1) Slot Cooler |
Nerdsbyte and Coolerguys |
I thought that the added fan would add some additional noise. I was wrong. I guess they didn't put "Ultra Cool" in the name for no reason... It's very quiet. The additional fan not only keeps the power supply cooler, the increased exhaust airflow also decreased my ambient case temp.
|
Scenario |
Ambient Room Temp |
Ambient Case Temp |
|
Without
the Enermax 450w Power Supply Installed |
27.5º C 81.5º F |
29.8º C 85.5º F |
|
With
the Enermax 450w Power Supply Installed |
27.5º C 81.5º F |
28.3º C 82.9º F |
Here's a somewhat crude graphic showing the basic airflow concept.