Enermax Gold: Modu87+ and Pro87+
by Christoph Katzer on January 19, 2010 1:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Pricing and Availability
The prices in Europe are at first sight unbelievably high: 120/150€ for a 500W power supply? Yes, we are not kidding. These prices are MSRPs, so bear in mind that street prices are frequently lower, especially with better availability and more competition. We should see drops of up to 30€ within a few months since several other manufacturers will be introducing efficient 80 Plus Gold certified power supplies at CeBIT in March.
In case of direct competition, you won't find any at the moment since there are no other manufacturers with a really high efficiency 500W power supply. The next ones are certified with 80 Plus Bronze and go for around 70€. If you calculate how many years you would need to run your system to justify the 50€ to 80€ price premium, you will recognize that even your kids might have to use this power supply in their lifetime. If the prices really fall 20€ to 30€ within the near future, you might want to consider one of those units.
In the 600W region you will have the same thing. 146/175€ is simply too much and Enermax shows clearly that they are taking advantage of the market exclusivity they currently enjoy. You can get 80 Plus Bronze certified units from several other manufacturers for 90€ or less. That's half of what Enermax wants to have for their Modu87+. Seasonic's X-Series with 650W is also available for around 145€ and comes with the 80 Plus Gold certification.
The suggested price of 185/210€ for the 700W units is at least getting close to other units. Other manufacturers have similar products with 80 Plus Silver certification for around 130€ (e.g. the Cougar S700 and the Silverstone Element). If you look again at the Seasonic X-Series you can get the 750W units for 170€. These two units from Enermax will need to get down to similar price levels to compete, and if they do you definitely want to consider the new Enermax models with their very compelling features.
The prices in the U.S. will be similar to what we see in Europe. $130/$150 for a 500W power supply is simply too much and we hope that Enermax will bring in some really good MIRs (mail-in rebates) or other incentives to make these units affordable. Since the 500W models don't actually have a real 80 Plus Gold competitor right now, we need to go down to the Silver level where we can find PSUs like the OCZ 550W Z-Series for around $86 at Newegg (after rebate), or right now we even see a stellar price of just $50 after MIR at Zipzoomfly. You get similar performance and it will cost you $80 less, since it doesn't have any cable management. If you take another step down to 80 Plus Bronze you will have several more choices priced around $100 (sans MIR).
The MSRP of the 600W units is $155 and $175. The main competition is the Seasonic X-Series, just like in Europe, since it comes with similar technology and offerings. The 650W X-Series currently goes for $170 on Newegg, which is the same price as the Modu87+. Dropping to a Silver certification we have again an OCZ Z-Series as a direct competition; it goes for around $90 after $20 MIR, and again Zipzoomfly has a $30 MIR for a final price of $60 - it's also available at TigerDirect for $80 after rebates. With a Bronze certification you will have tons of other manufacturers and all kinds of flavors for you to choose from. There are units from Antec, Thermaltake, Silverstone, Seasonic, Corsair, OCZ, and Cooler Master to name just a few companies. Prices range from $70 to $180 so it seems Enermax wasn't completely unreasonable when they set the MSRP at $130 and $175. If we see the 600W Modu87+ at around $140 it might be worth considering.
The 700W units are priced at $155 and $210 respectively. You can already get the Seasonic 750W X-Series for around $190 and it comes with a similar overall package and technology. Alternately, you can get the Seasonic S12D 750W for around $115 if you are okay with an 80 Plus Silver certification instead of going for the Gold (and you don't care about cable management). Again, there are tons of manufacturers with lower 80 Plus Bronze certification and if you do not care about getting the latest technology you can likely find a better product at a reasonable price among those.
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rbarone69 - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
I'm sure you're room temp isnt 50 degrees celsius... (122f)rbarone69 - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
Sorry guys, didnt see you actually put it in an environment at 50c. (should read better before commenting)Just curious why you picked such a high temp to test. Do you find that there are cases this warm in rooms with no A/C?
JarredWalton - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - link
It's a stress test to simulate a hotter case; if a PSU can handle 50C, it can easily handle the more common 30-35C.Christobevii3 - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
Could you hook up some different power supplies and show the difference they draw from the wall versus these at idle and load with a basic quad core, 4GB ram, two hard drive, and 5870 setup? I'm curious if spending $50 more on a power supply is going to actually make that big of a difference over a year of computing cost wise for electricity.- Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
In most cases it's better to keep your current PSU rather than buy a new one. Sometimes if you have a very inefficient unit it's worth the upgrade. If you already have a plain jane 80plus PSU, then it would be a waste of cash to upgrade.For instance lets say your PC idles at 100w DC from the board. We will use a 500w power supply for an example.
Your plain jane 500w 80plus PSU idles at 80% efficiency and the fancy gold one idles at 87% efficiency. If you calculate it to the wall for the plain jane 100w/.8= 125w, the gold one is 100w/.87= ~115w. So we have a difference of 10w. If we calculate the idle power difference over a year at .10 per kwh then: ((10w*24*365)/1000) * .10 = $8.76 saved per year with your PC on 24/7.
If you bought a 500w gold unit say at newegg for $100 just to upgrade (and the braggin' rights) it would take you over 11 years to recoup your $100 idling your PC 24/7. I can see many peeps will proudly display their gold unit signature. :) Let's see if they keep their PSU for 10 + years!
If you were going for a new build and trying to decide whether to go for a plain jane 80 plus at $50 or the fancy gold one at $100 (for a difference of $50) it would take over 5 1/2 years to recoup your $50 idling 24/7. For some this might be reasonable depending on the price of electricity in their area, and how much they actually use their PC. If you don't use your PC a whole lot, the plain jane 80 plus will most likely be good enough.
Kibbles - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
Don't forget the extra heat needs to be cooled during summers.But I agree, the savings is small especially since most people don't idle 24/7.
jasperjones - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - link
Who pays $0.10 per kwh? Is that residential? I'm in NYC and pay ~$0.20.Calin - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - link
Upgrade only if you have issues:*the air blown by the PSU is too hot
*computer is finicky (bad quality PSU could be the reason)
*you (actually) need more wattage
*your PSU is noisy, and you want a silent one
As seen in the page, one of those expensive PSU will happily provide you 15% or more power above nominal (no mention of the efficiency though, but it should probably be higher than 80%), while a low quality power supply might give you out-of-range voltages when reaching 90% load (or maybe even less than that)
beginner99 - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - link
And not to mention that the fabrication of the PSU also consumes energy. If you throw away ur old 80% PSU that is still working to buy this one you are actually wasting energy. It's the same with cars. Manufacturing of a car (creating the steel, plasitics,...) consumes more energy than it will ever use while it's actually running. So trading in your old one for a new one is wasting energy.Main reason to buy this PSU is because of low noise. Efficient = less heat = lower fan speed = quieter. Simple.
Makaveli - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
I also would like to see a PSU round up maybe in march time frame... :)I'm still sitting pretty with my Enermax Infinity 720 Watts right now, and you do make a good poing about Enermax PSU prices not dropping much.