Enermax Liberty ECO 500 W Power Supply Review

Overload Tests

Before overloading power supplies we always test first if the over current protection (OCP) circuit is active and at what level it is configured. For this test we installed only cables that were connected to the unit’s +12V1 rail (main motherboard cable and EPS12V cable), turned the unit on with the pattern for our test number five and increased current at +12V1 until we saw the unit shutting down. This happened when we tried to pull more than 32 A. We think this value is too high, especially when the label says that the limit for each +12 V rail if of 24 A. We prefer to see OCP configured at a level closer to what is printed on the label.

We could easily overload this unit. The problem was that if we tried to pull more than what is describe in the table below, ripple jumped through the roof. Pulling even more the unit wouldn’t turn on, which is great (probably the OVP or UVP in action, as the oscillation at the output was too big).

Below you can see the maximum amount of current/power we could pull from this unit. Noise level was still well within specs, at only 50 mV on both +12V1 and +12V2 inputs.

With Enermax Liberty ECO 500 W delivering more than 500 W efficiency dropped below the 80% mark (consider the results marked as "2", as they are the correct ones, measured with our precision power meter).