The Enermax Liberty - Getting long in the tooth, but still worth a look
by Christoph Katzer on July 30, 2007 1:40 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Efficiency
Room Temperature
Since the design of the Liberty is a few years old, we didn't expect incredible results. The efficiency is not very high compared to our most recent models, though we did measure an efficiency of 81% maximum which would have been good 2 years ago. For the most part, efficiency is in the 75-80% range with loads of 20% to 80%.
Power Factor Correction
The PFC is very good at lower input voltages, while as usual we see worse results at 230VAC. Scores of .99 or higher are desirable, which the Liberty achieves on 115VAC. The 230VAC result is not unusual, and for a two year old model we won't complain too much. On higher-end PSUs we would like to see PFC break .99 at high loads even on 230VAC, but it's certainly not a bad result.
OCP Test
In the OCP test we use a function from the Chroma to see how much load each rail can take. The test puts on an additional 5A each second on the test rail until either the OCP kicks in or our Chroma will shuts down from overpowering.
The Liberty performed well on the two 12V rails. The OCP was based at the usual amount of 24A. The 3.3V rail kicked in quite early; instead of the promised 28A we could only reach 25A and at the 5V rail we could only reach 29A instead of 30A. This is not a critical flaw, however, since the performance during testing was still very good and the 12V rails tend to be much more important than the 3.3V and 5V rails.
Room Temperature
Since the design of the Liberty is a few years old, we didn't expect incredible results. The efficiency is not very high compared to our most recent models, though we did measure an efficiency of 81% maximum which would have been good 2 years ago. For the most part, efficiency is in the 75-80% range with loads of 20% to 80%.
Power Factor Correction
The PFC is very good at lower input voltages, while as usual we see worse results at 230VAC. Scores of .99 or higher are desirable, which the Liberty achieves on 115VAC. The 230VAC result is not unusual, and for a two year old model we won't complain too much. On higher-end PSUs we would like to see PFC break .99 at high loads even on 230VAC, but it's certainly not a bad result.
OCP Test
In the OCP test we use a function from the Chroma to see how much load each rail can take. The test puts on an additional 5A each second on the test rail until either the OCP kicks in or our Chroma will shuts down from overpowering.
The Liberty performed well on the two 12V rails. The OCP was based at the usual amount of 24A. The 3.3V rail kicked in quite early; instead of the promised 28A we could only reach 25A and at the 5V rail we could only reach 29A instead of 30A. This is not a critical flaw, however, since the performance during testing was still very good and the 12V rails tend to be much more important than the 3.3V and 5V rails.
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26 Comments
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swaaye - Saturday, August 4, 2007 - link
I've bought a few AX400s and an AX450. On the surface, they seem to be great PSUs. Very quiet with that 120 mm fan. I don't think they have very good efficiency. Newegg only says >65%. I would like to see a review of one of them as well.miahallen - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
A8N-SLI DeluxOpty 165 @ 2.5GHz
8800GTX @ 621/999
4x SATA2 HDD
Antec P180b
I bought the Liberty 500W about a year ago and it has served me very well. I am very picky about noise, so I swapped the fan for a low noise Yate Loon model...best change ever. Now I cannot hear it at all!!!
It's interesting you mention good reliability, there seems to be lots of unhappy users on forums around the web having had problems with the Liberty series (mostly the 620W version from my experiance). I also replaced my 500W 6mo after purchase, but not because it failed, it just developed a rattle that drove me crazy. Enermax was very prompt at replacing it with a brand new one! Speaking of failures, I have a good friend who bought the 620W on my recommendation, and his blew up last week?! Whoops! Anyhow, thanks for the great review, you've endulged my confidence in the investment I made :)
JarredWalton - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
So I'm not sure I understand... you bought the 500W and swapped the fan for a Yate Loon, but then the PSU developed a rattle and you got a new unit? I don't know what causes a rattle in a PSU, but usually it's the fan, which you had already replaced.... Since you had already opened it, wouldn't it have been easy to just fix the issue yourself? Or was there something else causing a rattle? (I'm also surprised any manufacturer would replace a PSU that you had opened to swap fans.)Anyway, one of the unfortunate aspects of PSUs is that a company can make an excellent product in one market and a lousy one in another. Sounds like the 500W Liberty might be great but the 620W has issues. I know I had a test system (from ABS) where a 620W failed during the two weeks of stress testing and benchmarks. They sent a replacement, which seemed to work fine, but long-term I couldn't say whether it was really stable.
xsilver - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
just goes to show that old psu's are not outdated by any means.its funny that psu's are one of the few (only?) components that dont drop massively in price years after release.
is there a review of the corsair hx520 in the works? thats the psu that most people seem to be recommending for higher end systems and I feel will be the benchmark for performance/value
Final Hamlet - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
What I am really longing for is the review of the new 1TB-F1 hard-drive by Samsung. Any ETA available?Thank you.
Le Québécois - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
Any chance you could review one of the newer Enermax model from the Galaxy or Infinity series?Great PSU reviews btw, keep them coming !