![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Wednesday, December 10, 2008
- Author:
- Paul Johnson
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Enermax Revolution85+ 1050W
We have been waiting for this one for a good while. A kilowatt of computer power at very high efficiencies. Looks to kill and enough new PSU features to make any enthusiast turn their head for a second peek. Viva la revolution baby.
Overview
The first thing we are going to look at with the Enermax Revolution 1050W is its packaging, accessories, and documentation. While none of these items is a real make or break item for a power supply the packaging quite often contains a lot of information about the product we are purchasing. The inclusion of an owner’s manual that provides actual information about our product is also of great help. Accessories are almost unnecessary with a power supply as the unit is self contained, unless it is modular, but there cases where a manufacturer can include useful accessories to make installation, routing and use more efficient.
Black is supposed to be slimming, but given the size of the Enermax Revolution packaging it doesn't seem to be working so well. The packaging is very basic black, with grey embossed lettering making up the majority of the printing. Included in all of that printing is a lot of useful information including the power table (reproduced below), connector count, efficiency graph, plenty of marketing points, CrossFire logo, and 80Plus silver logo. Among these marketing points there are a large number we have covered before with various Enermax products but features new to this unit are the zero load on all rails, and the new 12pin modular sockets for future connections. On the current side of things we find that this unit is certified for CrossFire up to HD4870 X2 but certainly this unit with its 8 PCI-Express connectors can physically support more than just these two cards. On the efficiency side of things we find this unit is advertised as being 80Plus Silver rated and indeed the 80PLus website has the unit listed as such. Lastly, the Revolution comes with a 3 year warranty which is quite frankly a letdown. The marketing for this product is quite liberally covered in points about how this unit protects users, and users’ components but yet it only has a 3 year warranty. While not the shortest we have seen, this seems shorter than we would expect from a unit so focused on quality and protection.
*8 pin PCI-Express Connectors are modified 6+2 style connectors with 2 extra grounds not 12v sense wires.
*Modular connector location is relative to the fixed wiring being on the left hand side of the unit.
From the power label supplied with the Enermax Revolution 1050W we see that this unit is another heavily 12v oriented unit as it has up to ~99% of its DC output capacity available on the 12v rails for a total of 87A. This 12v output is paired up with no less than eight PCI-Express connectors, sixteen SATA, and six Molex connectors. This arrangement should be sufficient for, well, everyone. The unit’s DC output is broken up into six 12v rails via OCP but the OCP cap for each rail is set at 30A which should easily be sufficient for the current (and near future) demands of anything that can actually be connected to each individual rail. I am sure however some overachiever out there could find a way to overdraw this unit's total capacity. In the end, it would seem hard to find any fault with the way this unit is laid out. Indeed, even the single rail proponents are going to have a hard time finding the elusive "trapped power" or a way that a single rail unit will have more power available to any one component that it actually could use in concert with all other components in a system than with the Revolution 1050W.
Once we open the Enermax Revolution packaging we find two boxes, a pouch for modular cables, and the manual. Inside of those two smaller boxes is the power supply, the AC cord, the modular cables, mounting screws, and silica. The user manual for the Revolution is a hefty 60 pages long in eleven languages. Included in these pages is a wealth of information including the majority of the normal electrical specifications, warranty information, 12v rail layout, PowerGuard decoding information, cable count, installation instructions, and UPS compatibility and selection guide. Other than SilverStone, Enermax' manuals typically are some of the most genuinely useful and this one is no different.