Akasa PowerMax 1000W Gaming PSU

Supplied Cables

• One 80cm black braided 20+4-pin ATX cable
  
• One 80cm black braided 4+4-pin EPS 12V cable
  
• Two black braided PCI-Express cables with a 6+2-pin connector at 60cm and 6-pin connector at 75cm
  
• Two black braided SATA power cables with connectors at 60cm, 80cm and 100cm
  
• Two black braided Molex power cables with connectors at 60cm, 80cm, 100cm and a floppy power connector at 110cm.

Not much is there? For a 1,000W PSU there just isn't enough of anything: six SATA and six Molex is what we find on PSUs of half this wattage and its eclipsed by others that offer upwards of a dozen of both.

The biggest surprise is that for this "gaming" PSU, Akasa has thrown on just four PCI-Express connectors and only two of them are 8-pin - that's pathetic. The Corsair HX1000W supports six PCI-Express connectors and the new 1,050W Enermax Revolution offers eight 6+2-pin. The Akasa will support a pair of Radeon HD 4870 X2s, but if you're running 3-way SLI or four separate Radeon HD 4870s, forget it.


With that said, of what cables there are, the choices are pretty decent - the 6+2-pin PCI-Express connector is small and unintrusive, while the 6-pin dangling off the end means you don't need another cable. If it's not used it needs tied back in order to prevent your case from looking messy.

There is no additional four or 8-pin EPS connector for workstation boards, so this PSU can't be used for workstation boards - this is something even the 625W Enermax Modu 82+, 800W BFG ES Series or any number of other sub-1,000W PSUs can do. The connectors are all black to match the braiding, which is of high quality and the right diameter, and the molex cables have the standard push release plastic clips on them, but the SATA connectors are not 90 degrees.

Akasa was also keen to point out that its cable braiding is not sealed with zip-ties because it compressed the cables, so when they inevitably get hot due to the high current flow, they won't melt together. While it's not explicitly true for the ATX cable, the heatshrinking is simply, yet firmly glued in place over the braid - there was no way we could shift them.


That's not unsurprising though since the gaps between SATA (and Molex) connectors is 20cm! Even if you alternate which hard drives you plug into there will still be a loop of cable left poking out. The same goes for all the cables really - do you honestly need an 80cm ATX cable? Is your motherboard really almost metre from your PSU? We can possibly understand why the EPS 12V connector is as long as it is - if your PSU sits in the bottom of the case and most EPS motherboard connectors are at the top, often it can be too short - I've had this problem in an Antec P190 and that's not even that tall.

Unless you've got a huge case though tidying this non-modular PSU is going to be a big of a nightmare, and Akasa's own cases certainly don't need the length.