Enermax Noisetaker EG701P-VE Power Supply

Manufacturer: Enermax
Supplied by: Maxpoint
Street Price: $150

By Dean Barker (7/23/2004)

Introduction

Power supply units seem to draw attention to themselves in waves.  A year or so ago, everyone was all into clear or tinted acrylic PSU covers as well as UV reactive connectors.  While PSU mods remain highly popular, the waxing and waning of the attention to the units themselves continues.  Over the past few months we have found ourselves again on the upstroke.  With the latest generation of VGA cards coming out in all their power hungry glory and some even requiring two Molex connections for power; high end power supply units are again in the spotlight.  Take NVidia for example with either their 480 watt power requirement for the GeForce 6800 Ultra or the upcoming PCI Express VGA cards running in SLI mode.  If you are anything like me, when I upgrade I make sure the parts I’m buying won’t be obsolete in a year.  This is especially true for power supplies as this is an item we as a community typically don't upgrade except every few years.  Today, we have a look at the Enermax Noisetaker EG701P-VE (600 watts) to see how it fits it to the mix.

Specifications

• Dimensions: 150 (W) x 86 (H) x 140mm (D)

• Noisetaker Series offered in 600W, 470W, 420W, 370W, 320W and 260W sizes

• Smart Fan Technology

• (2) Native SATA connectors

• Supports P4 and AMD, to include the Intel Prescott, and AMD Athlon 64 platforms

• Manual and automatic fan control

• Copper shielded to reduce EMI

• 80 and 90mm cooling fans

• Independent 12V rails

• Safety: Approval UL, cUL, TÜV, CB

Features

The Enermax Noisetaker is a powder blue color with a sparkle like you would expect to see on the paint job of a boat.  Breaking things up are two cooling fans, one 80mm and one 90mm.  Usually fans in a power supply are straight forward.  Not so here.  Both of these fans employ what Enermax calls their Smart Fan Technology.  Enermax's power supply fans are set up so that they will continue to run after your computer is shut down for at least two minutes.  What this does is it cycles heat out of your case and PSU in an effort to constantly keep heat to a minimum within your box.  This is one of those features that is arguably useful but will be well received by all.  I can tell you that these fans are QUIET.  So quiet in fact that I thought this feature wasn't working until I looked closely and saw that the fans were indeed spinning.  Never have I seen quieter operation.  

     

With the power on, the two fans' speed can be controlled manually or automatically.  A thermal probe mounted inside the unit varies the speed relative to the temperature detected.  On the rear of the unit, immediately next to the on/off switch is a small rheostat.  This rheo allows for manual control of the 80mm fan.  A small RPM cable is another way to take control of the power supply's 80mm fan.  This RPM cable allows for mainboards with this function to control the fan coming on/off automatically from the mainboard. 

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