Part 1: Four Cheap 80 PLUS Bronze Power Supplies, Reviewed

Enermax Triathlor 385W

The Triathlor series from Enermax sits at the lower end of this vendor's product portfolio, both with respect to its price and feature set. While we do notice the company's cost-cutting efforts, this 385 W PSU superficially appears to offer better build quality than Cougar's A350. Admittedly, our first impressions comes from the Enermax PSU's greater weight. Chalk it up to penny-pinching that the peripheral cables are only sleeved up to the first connector. From there, they're individual wires.

Cable length is a mixed bag. The 24-pin ATX, ATX12V, and auxiliary PCI Express cables are sufficiently long. However, the SATA connectors wind up as the first two positions on both peripheral cables. So, all of your SATA-based devices need to be 20" away from the power supply or closer. This is further aggravated by the fact that the first and second SATA connectors are a mere 4” apart. Somewhat turned off by such a problematic configuration, we were then surprised to find Velcro strips for tidying up the cable routing. Like Cougar's submission, the Enermax PSU employs two 12 V rails, each of which supplies up to 20 A.