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Published: April 30, 2009 | Source: Enermax | Author: James Napier

Enermax Revolution85+ 950w Modular PSU

Introduction
 
EnermaxEnermax is one of those few companies in the PC scene that requires no introduction. With products such as the Galaxy 1000w and Infiniti range under their belts, Enermax has on several occasions made a profound impact on the PSU market and helped shape it into what it is today. Back in our 5-way High-End 1KW PSU roundup a short while ago I got a chance to take an early look at Enermax’s successor to their ever popular Galaxy range dubbed the Revolution. With 90% efficiency, stable voltages and low noise levels it certainly lived up to its name and managed to walk away with our “Editors Choice” award.
 
However, being a pre-production model it was hard to shake off the feeling that some elements of the unit might ‘change’ before it hit the mass market. With this in mind we requested that Enermax send us over a Revolution unit from their ‘Retail’ batch when they were available, and today that’s exactly what I’m going to be taking a look at in the form of the 950W model. Below are the specs….
 
• 85PLUS ready! – World’s first modular cable PSU series with 85-91% efficiency @ 20-100% load. Certified by 80 PLUS® organizations.
• AMD GAME! Ready and ATI CrossFireX certified – AMD® AMD GAME! Ready and ATI CrossFire Xâ„¢ certified. (ENERMAX REVOLUTION85+ 950W, ERV950EWT-01, © 2007 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., ATI, The ATI logo, CrossFireX, and Radeon are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.)
• FUTURE CPU ready! – Ready for most upcoming CPU generations by 12P sockets for possible connector changes, by complying to latest EPS12V PSU design guides for compatibility & by ZERO LOAD Design for C6 state functions.
• FUTURE GPU ready! – Ready for most upcoming GPU generations by 12P sockets for possible connector changes, by six massive 12V rails for perfect load distribution & by ZERO LOAD Design for Hybrid Mode functions.
• AHD² Topology – Industry-leading “Asymmetric Hybrid DC-to-DC” topology with the world’s highest efficiency & most stable performance.
• 24/7 @ 50°C ready! – Non-Stop industrial class performance at 50°C/122°F ambient.
• HeatGuard – Keeping PSU fan running for 30-60 seconds after shut down to dissipate the remaining system heat and prolonging system lifetime.
• PowerGuard – PSU status monitor with 4-mode LED (Off / Stand-by / OK / Fail).
• SafeGuard – Industry-leading octuple protection circuitry of OCP, OVP, UVP AC, UVP DC, OPP, OTP, SIP & SCP protects your system.
• AirGuard – Patented air-inlet with optimal aero-dynamical design reducing noisy air turbulences.
• SILENT ready! – Ultra-quiet 13.5cm fan with intelligent RPM control guarantees cool performance and silent operation.
• 99% 12V Power – World’s first EPS12V PSU with 99% 12V output capability.
• SERVER ready! – SSI PSDG 2009 support for latest Intel® Coreâ„¢ Extreme/i7, Xeonâ„¢ and AMD® Opteronâ„¢ and SLIâ„¢ or CrossFireXâ„¢ and AMD GAME! or AMD GAME! Ultra systems and downward compatible with SSI PSDG 2008 1.0, EPS12V 2.92, 2.91, 2.8.
• DXX ready! – For PCI Express 2.0/DXX next-generation graphic cards with 6+2P (8P) PCI-E connectors.
• EMC ready! – Full-scale electromagnetic filtering protects your system against radiation interferences (CE EMC EN61204 compliance).
 
Cutting away some of the SomethingGuard this and Something Ready! that marketing bull, we can see that the Revolution 85+ has quite an impressive list of features. Already we know from experience that the unit is capable of ~90% efficiency from the pre-production testing, but Enermax actually state that this is potentially obtainable at load levels from  20-100%. The Revolution has also been designed to handle a ‘ZERO LOAD’ state correctly for standby situations, which may not sound like a great feat, but believe me when I say that there are some high-end PSU’s out there that handle zero load situations very poorly with voltages going well outside of ATX spec.
 
Support for all the latest (and upcoming) hardware is also a predominant feature, with the unit supporting all of the latest EPS, SSI, CrossfireX and SLI standards. Of course Enermax are forbidden from mentioning the latter two standards in the same breath, so for this reason you will find two different revisions of the unit on their product pages. One labelled Revolution85+ Crossfire, and the other Revolution85+ SLI. A certain amount of future proofing has also been applied to the modular connector system, but we’ll take a closer look at that over the next few pages.
 
Enermax Revolution85+ 950W Rail Layout DC Output +3.3V +5V +12V1 +12V2 +12V3 +12V4 +12V5 +12V6 -12V +5VSB 25A 25A 30A 30A 30A 30A 30A 30A 0.6A 5A Max Power 170W 948W 7.2W 25W 950W (1140W Peak)
 
Enermax have decided to split the +12v output over a total of six rails with each rail rated at 30A and a maximum load of 948W (78A) across all rails at any one time. This is often considered by enthusiasts to be a less favourable configuration than having a single +12v rail with all power directly available. Of course there are good reasons for Enermax arranging the rails in this way, and if you’ve ever seen a device with 78A going through it short circuiting, you’ll know exactly why.
 
In fact safety is another area where the Revolution85+ seems to score highly. In addition to the usual over/under volt/current and short circuit safety features that are collectively named as ‘SafeGuard’ by Enermax, the Revolution also boasts an LED status system (PowerGuard) that gives a visual way to diagnose any PSU issues and a cooling system (HeatGuard) that continues to run the PSU fan for 30-60 seconds after system shutdown to help increase the PSU’s lifespan.
 
Now let’s take a good look at the unit…