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     Enermax has bundled all of the wire leads into three groups. One group belongs to the main ATX wire bundle itself and is wrapped in the nylon anti-chaff material almost all the way to the male connector. A second bundle has the 4-pin auxiliary 12-volt power connector, the motherboard RPM sensor lead, and the PCI Express video connector. This bundle is wrapped about half-way with the nylon anti-chaff loom. The last bundle (pictured in the center of the above photo) groups the remaining peripheral power wires together. There are 4 Serial ATA connectors divided between two leads with two on each lead. . A single lead has three Molex connectors on it while two more leads have two Molex and one floppy connector each. In standard Enermax style, the cables are plenty long enough to reach just about anywhere in the enclosure that you want to go.

     The product specifications make mention of an EMI shield. The shield, pictured above, is a lead core that is encircles each of the power wires as they leave the power supply housing.

     Here we see a close up of the PCI-Express video connector. The EG495AX-VE only has one such connector in its wire bundles, so folks looking to use an SLI configuration will have to use the Molex adapters provided with your video card. On that same note, system builders looking to base their graphics system on an SLI rig would probably be served with a higher capacity power supply to begin with. Perhaps Enermax will take note of this and include multiple PCI-E connectors on their higher capacity units.

     As far as installation goes, it's just a power supply. 4 Screws and a bunch of connectors later the EG495AX-VE was installed with LEDs all over the motherboard confirming we were ready to hit the power switch. Right away, the Noisetaker was leaving a lesser power supply in the dust by booting the DFI Lanparty 875P-T in an Overclocked configuration. A (to remain forever nameless) generic powers supply was unable to boot this system without the ATI X800XT video card failing for an UNREADABLE BIOS CHECKSUM ERROR.  An Overclocked CPU alone can be enough of a load-test to guarantee the success or failure of a power supply, but I took the torture a step further by inducing my own real-world stress test.

     Maximum PC just completed a Power Supply round up in their latest issue which gave me the idea for a stress test for this power supply unit. During the test, Motherboard Monitor will be keeping track of the voltage levels and running a High/Low tally of the results. The stress test will include the following. Performing a DEFRAG of the RAID-0 Array using Executive Software Diskeeper. A DVD+R will be recorded from an ISO image dragged through the network using NERO. The DVD-ROM drive will be performing a scan of all files on a 2 Gigabyte DVD using Norton Anti-Virus. The CD-R drive will be performing Digital Audio Extraction. All the while, 3D Mark will be trying to CHUG through a small series of benchmarks.

Conclusion....

     The system maintained 100% stability for the duration of the test. Furthermore, all of the voltages hovered within acceptable limits -- except for the -5V standby power rail. I can only presume that this rail is being interpreted incorrectly by the motherboards hardware monitor. While options for modular power line connections continue to gain popularity, the most important feature of any power supply is its ability to generate a solid supply of voltage and current. To meet the demands of modern Overclocked computer systems, only the best power supplies will live up to the challenge without failing and causing damage along the way. The EG495AX-VE Noisetaker lives up to the reputation that Enermax has built for themselves. It is a perfect compliment to a water cooled system! Even with the fan control set on its highest setting, the power supply was barely a whisper above the other cooing fans in the system.