When building a high performance system quite possibly the most important choice of component is the power supply. There is no point in building your very own home made supercomputer to have it powered by a low end supply that has problems holding a good rail. Many users fall foul of the misconception that “the higher the wattage the better” where as others feel they can save money on something they deem as unimportant. When building our Driver Heaven review systems we take time to look at the variety of supplies and to decide whether they can take the extreme load we have to throw at them when reviewing the highest end hardware. When deciding to build a gaming system based around the latest array of hardware such as AM2 and Conroe with either SLI or Crossfire delivering the graphics it is extremely important to purchase a unit which will ensure you end up with a stable system.

The Enermax Noisetaker

The Noisetaker comes packaged in a box which surpasses expectations. Whether looking for basic information on specifications or detailed information on wattage/ampage the Enermax box tells us everything we need to know.

We find the unit well protected in bubble wrap and on top is the documentation. The white box which is visible on the right contains the power cord, 8-4pin converter, screws to install in a case and an Enermax sticker. Basically everything that is required is included and in addition the manual is reasonably well written.

We have mentioned before that it would be nice if Enermax put a little more thought into the protection of their units during shipping, as a layer of bubble wrap isn't the best solution. Once opened we find the PSU is a very attractive unit. The metallic blue paint goes very well with the gold fan grills and creates an initial feeling of quality. They say that first impressions count, right?

The Noisetaker features the now standard two fan design with one fan on the base (clear) to suck air in and the other to expel it out the back. Both fans are Silence ball bearing branded models. Also shown above is the power button and fan speed control. This small dial allows you to adjust the fans for best performance or more silent running. It has to be said though that even at max RPM the PSU is still very quiet.

At the rear we find the cabling, this particular unit has everything the end user is likely to need for some time. This includes floppy connectors (2), standard molex (7). 24 and 20 pin motherboard connectors, 8pin 12v power connector, sata drive connectors (4) and PCIe graphics connectors (2). Also in the bundle of cables is a fan speed connector which caters for the monitoring of the fans via software in Windows.

Inside the unit the layout is clean with plenty of room for good airflow, there are also no signs of low quality workmanship or the use of cheap components.

Before we look at the performance, lets take a few moments to study the specifications (as stated by Enermax).

Across the board those are very impressive figures. Having 22A on both 12v rails should be more than enough for all currently available video cards. There is one final design aspect which the above table and our pictures do not tell you and that is the smart fan function Enermax have incorporated into the unit. This technology works by running the PSU fans for a short time (at least 30seconds) after the system is turned off to ensure that the internal components are cooled which should (in theory) increase their lifespan. The temperature level for shut down of the fans when in this state is 40c or 104f.