Enermax Liberty 400W PSU ELT400AWT

Product : Enermax Liberty 400W PSU - ELT400AWT

Article Date : 18/10/05
Page : 1 of 1
Written By : ThePanther
Official Site : Enermax

When I opened the box of the Liberty PSU from Enermax I instantly thought what a great PSU this was for PC's with Side windows and Modded / Overclocked PC's. With the Liberty PSU you only have to plug in the power cables you are going to use.

A new design for PSU's

Differences in design between PSU's has been limited over the past few years but now we have something different. The range of Liberty PSU's from Enermax allow you to only connect the cable you require. All the others can be safely stored away outside your PC. This has a fantastic use for modders everywhere for a start. Clear cases and cases with side windows can benefit from the tidiness that this idea will bring. Less wires is always a plus for a good looking case.

On a more important note the design of the Liberty PSU and its less cables will allow for a much better airflow inside your case. The more powerful the components inside your PC the more important a good airflow is. The Liberty PSU is an excellent choice for keeping airflow at a maximum inside your case.

Built for the Modern System

When looking at the adaptability of this Power Supply Unit you can tell this was designed for a modern system. It comes with connectors to allow two power hungry PCI Express graphics cards in SLI or Crossfire mode. The Liberty PSU's are fully supportive of both Nvidia's SLI and ATI's Crossfire dual graphics systems. The Model we have is a 400W which is enough these days for most Systems but if you feel you need more Enermax does have a 500W and a 600W available.

Enermax have given their new range of Liberty PSU's the ability to work in the newer systems working to the BTX standard and supports Dual core CPU's and entry level servers and workstations.

The modern system also creates a lot of heat. The Liberty PSU's come with a neat design internally giving your PSU plenty of room to "breathe". The Neatness of the inner workings of the PSU allow the well sized fan to do its job of circulating the air inside the case and removing the unwanted hot air. This again brings us back to the cabling. The lack of unnecessary cables keeping the air flow up and the heat down.

The Liberty PSU comes with all the things you need for any system. IDE power cables as well as S-ATA power cables. Main power and PCI express cables are included and the Enermax PSU can connect them all up without the need for extra Molex connectors or Y cables clogging up your system.

The Finer Details

At PantherProducts we like to look at the finer things in products that allow the user to have that little bit of an easier life when inside their PC. We also like it when products create a visual improvement inside your PC for the sake of modding. The Enermax Liberty Series PSU scores a point in both of these categories. Firstly the molex connectors have a wonder little clip on them that allows an easy release of the connector from the component. Simply pressing this catch will release the molex connector quickly and easily. I'm sure we all remember at some point struggling to get molex connectors to release.

On the visual side of things we come again to the lack of cables in the system with the Liberty PSU installed. My initial though upon seeing this PSU was that I am going to use this PSU in a modded clear case sometime some because it leave so much room for decent modding features inside your case. We will be giving the Enermax Liberty PSU a design award from PantherProducts for giving us a Power Supply worthy of a decent modding case.

Features and Specs

Full compliance with the highest standard to desktop power requirements. Split 12V rails provide most stable current to CPU, GPU , MB and drives.

Full support of Dual Core systems (incl. Pentium D EE and Athlon 64 X2) & Dual CPU systems.

Convertible design to power up ATX/BTX systems and support dual CPU entry-level server/workstation.

PF value up to 0.99 to provide stable and clean power under 100-240VAC by auto switching.

High efficiency of about 80% under wide load range (30-100%) minimizes your electricity bill.

Special design 12cm fan combines silence and cooling by intelligent speed control.

Protected by OCP, OVP, UVP, OLP, SCP, OTP for maximum safety. Full rated power under 0-40 o C/32-104 o F ambient temp.

Smarter cable choice and better cable routing for a neat and tidy case.

Unique 4-pin Molex + SATA connectors in pairs give you free choice on using either PATA or SATA devices.

Support of Dual PCI-E graphics cards, SLI or CrossFire.

Toughest EMI shielding protects your system and near-by appliances.

Conclusion

I have gone on a bit about the lack of cables in this review and how it makes for a great modding PSU. But that's not all that the Liberty PSU series is about. Its about being able to handle anything inside your PC. With it being compliant with all the latest technologies from the ATX / BTX formats to supporting both the dual graphics card configurations as well as supporting both Intel and AMD platforms. It supports both IDE and S-ATA storage devices and even the latest in Dual CPU's. The fan inside the PSU is effective and can hardly be heard. It all makes for an excellent choice for anyone wishing to purchase a new PSU.

We have to say that the Liberty is a tough all rounder but at PantherProducts we love the Liberty PSU as a great example as a modding PSU. As always with these reviews we cannot comment of the life of these products or any possible degradation over time because we don't have the PSU for that length of time. However we have Enermax PSU's in our systems here at PantherProducts and have never had a problem yet so we can definitely give the brand of Enermax and Coolergiant a big thumbs up. We will give the Enermax Liberty PSU a design Award for providing a PSU which will be incorporated into a PantherProducts Mod system soon in the future