5 Power Supplies Get the Full Juice Treatment

Enermax Liberty ELT500AWT, Continued

Enermax uses a six-pin connector for its power cables, but it's only possible to switch connectors around in one direction: PCIe cables actually fit in normal device ports, but not the other way around. That means it's conceivable that a graphics card might be supplied with too little voltage and not be able to do its job properly, but this is unlikely to damage any equipment. A different type of connector is used for peripheral wiring, which delivers 5V and 3.3V alongside 12V leads, so that these connections cannot be inserted into a PCIe receptacle by mistake.

An SLI connector fits into an HDD/ODD/Peripheral port, but smaller outlets on the PCIe receptacle prevent HDD/ODD/Peripheral cables from plugging into PCIe ports.

The ATX connector uses a 24-pin configuration in keeping with the new ATX12V2.0 norm, but may be separated into a 20-pin and a four-pin block for use with older 20-pin motherboard sockets. The eight-pin dual-core connector can likewise be divided into two four-pin blocks, so that one of them may be used to accommodate older P4 motherboards if necessary.

Both motherboard and P8 connectors may be separated to accommodate older motherboard configurations.

The Enermax power supply is well made.

The accessories that Enermax includes with this unit show that the company has made a name for itself. However, users must provide their own cable ties (unlike many other PSUs that include cable ties and wire wraps among their offerings).

Users can find the on/off switch and the power cord receptacle on the back side of the Enermax PSU.