900W to 1100W PSU Group Test

Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000W

Supplied Connectors

Modular Cables
• Two 50cm 6-pin PCI-Express cables with white and black braided with red connectors;
  
• One 50cm 4-pin 12V connector with black and white braided cables;
  
• Three twin Molex plugged cables with black and white braiding: first plug 50cm, second plug 70cm;
  
• Two single floppy and twin Molex plugged cables with black and white braiding: first plug 50cm, third plug 90cm;
  
• Five triple 90 degree SATA plugged cables with black and white braiding: first plug 50cm, third plug 90cm;
  
  Cables On PSU
• Two 6+2-pin PCI-Express cables with black and white braiding and red connectors, one is 60cm and the other 65cm long;
  
• One 60cm 6-pin PCI-Express connector with black and white braiding and red connectors;
  
• One 65cm 8-pin 12V cable with black and white braiding;
  
• One 65cm 4+4-pin 12V cable with black and white braiding;
  
• One 70cm 24-pin ATX cable;
  
• One triple 90 degree SATA plugged cable with black and white braiding: first plug 50cm, third plug, 75cm;
  
• One triple plugged Molex cable with black and white braiding: first plug 50cm, third plug 75cm;
  
• An 80cm Fan speed sensor cable;

This is without doubt a serious PSU for serious needs; it might as well come with a frown and a leaflet telling kids to 'stay in school'. Understandably Enermax can't make all the cables modular since there simply isn't space, so there is a necessary minimum sprouting from the rear of the unit itself. If you can't even fill all the sprouting cables then you certainly don't require the power this PSU has to offer.

Eighteen SATA hard drives can be actually attached to this if need be, and you can still throw on a half dozen optical drives (or more hard drives) on top of that. That's a real use of over half a kilowatt of power, before you even get to the actual system. Normally we berate a company if they include both 4+4-pin and 8-pin connectors on separate cables, which Enermax does, but given that some motherboards require both and the tailoring elsewhere that Enermax has given toward the high end workstation or server (without getting into all sort of mission critical redundancies) we can't but argue this is a necessary thing here. However, it's not all strawberries and cream and Enermax can't seem to decide whether it wants to include them on a single cable for neatness or to split them for ease of use, so it goes half way killing what good it had intended.

The same argument goes for the solid 24-pin ATX socket: normally we'd complain but here we expect a corresponding motherboard to use it indefinitely. The SATA plugs all get the 90 degree treatment which makes them easier to install, although we'd like more variation in the supplied modular cable lengths. Quick release bits are added to the Molex plugs which again adds to the ease of use. It's the many little things like this and the labels on the cables to tell you what each does that really reinforces the attention to detail Enermax instil in a product.


The black braid with white stripe is the same as featured on the Infiniti 720W we previously reviewed, and it still gives it the appearance of serpents extending from the blue steel box. It may not be as discrete and easily blending as plain black, but it still looks just as good, if not better.

Testing

During testing we found the unit remained extremely cool all over, even though top down coolers are argued to have dead sports in the corners away from the fan this doesn't seem to be the case here. We recorded just 33.2°C and only 30.2°C from the air temperature coming out the back. The only problem was that the Enermax was much nosier than most of the other PSUs we also tested. Enermax knows this and have replaced the 80mm fan with a lower noise 3000RPM (!!) version instead in a recent model revision.

This is still ball bearing which means it's inherently louder than both sleeve and fluid bearing alternatives, but it also lasts far longer. It's an acceptable argument to use, considering the conditions you'll want this to run in means that having equipment that lasts is probably a greater concern over noise, especially if it's drowned out behind a dozen (or more) hard drives, a couple of graphics cards and some CPUs as you load the PSU.

However, that's not always the case; back when we reviewed the Vadim we found that the Enermax was clearly the loudest thing in the case, even though it had at least a dozen (extremely low CFM) fans and a couple of Raptor hard drives. But then again, we use these exact same PSU for the 8800 GTX SLI and HD2900XT CrossFire and you can barely hear them when we load them between 25-60% during testing.