| Enermax Pro82+ 625W Power Supply Review | ||
| by Michael "SKYMTL" Hoenig | April 11, 2008 | ||
| Cables and Connectors / 9800GX2 Compatibility Cables and Connectors- Molex: 6 Connectors o 1x 26” length (3 Connectors each) - SATA: 6 Connectors o 1x 26” length (3 connectors each) - PCI-E 6+2 pin: 2 Connectors o 2x 20” length - PCI-E 6-Pin: 2 Connectors o 2x 20” length - Floppy: 2 Connectors (@ end of 21”Molex cables) o 1x 28” length - 24-pin ATX Connector: 21” length - 4+4 Pin CPU Connector: 23” length While the ATX and CPU connectors on the Pro82+ are of a good length, there are a few notable exceptions such as the PCI-E connectors. We found these cables in particular to have issues reaching where we wanted to in the Gigabyte Aurora case after we tried routing them through the back panel. The SATA cables also had a tough time reaching the bottom hard drive in the Aurora. However, there are a few more serious issues we had with the cable layout which we will touch upon a bit later in this section. As you can see in the picture above, the cable layout is very much a mixed bag of tricks with the usual Enermax quirkiness. The last time we saw an Enermax power supply we scratched our heads over the layout of the odd Infinity Cables but with this power supply it is a bit different. Why in the world would they bundle all four PCI-E cables TOGETHER? Even though it is obviously done to save money, this business of sleeving the PCI-E cables together does not sit well with us at all. It makes routing the cables next to impossible and if you have one graphics card you will have no choice but to bring all of the PCI-E cables to it in order to use just one or two. Thank God Enermax has included the Velcro tie wraps. To add insult to injury, the whole bottom half of every PCI-E cable isn’t sleeved at all. The SATA and Molex cables are also bound together but not to the same extent as the PCI-E cables we just saw. Thankfully, these are sleeved….partially. Once again we see that Enermax took the easy way out and only sleeved the Molex and SATA cables up to the first cable and then the sleeving disappears into thin air. Unfortunately, the 4+4 pin CPU cable gets the same slap in the face and only gets partially sleeved as well. Enermax has included a pair of 8-pin PCI-E connectors which means that this power supply has the connectors necessary for a pair of high wattage cards like 9800 GX2s. Even for Enermax this is overreaching and we feel it gives potentially inexperienced customers the wrong idea about what kinds of components this power supply can safely power. Tons of connectors are great but in the end it is better err on the safe side and only provide customers with what they can safely use rather than what they WANT to use. The Pro82+ also comes with a connector used for fan speed monitoring as long as your motherboard as a header which supports this feature. 9800GX2 Compatibility As some of you may know, the Nvidia 9800GX2 requires a particular layout of the 8-pin PCI-E connector in order for a power supply to be compatible with it. If your power supply does not have the right kind of 8-pin PCI-E connector, you will either have to modify the connector or the fan shroud of the card which would void your warranty in both cases. In this section we will be looking at this power supply’s compatibility with Nvidia’s new dual-GPU monster. Much like we saw with the PC Power & Cooling Silencer a few days ago, in order to get the 6+2 pin PCI-E connector from the Pro82+ to fit into the receptacle of the GX2, you must first insert the 2 extra pins. Then you are able to wedge in the other 6 pins to complete the connection. | ||
| |
| Latest Reviews in Power Supplies | |||||||||
|