Enermax NAXN 82+ 550 W Power Supply Review

Introduction

Enermax has just expanded their NAXN 82+ series of power supplies with the 80 Plus Bronze certification to include three new models, 450 W, 550 W, and 650 W. (This series also has 750 W and 850 W models.) However, you need to pay attention, as Enermax also has two other series called NAXN, the “plain” NAXN, also known as Tomahawk II, featuring 350 W, 450 W, and 500 W models, with no 80 Plus certification, and the NAXN 80+, featuring 350 W, 450 W, 500 W, and 600 W models, with the standard 80 Plus certification. To make things more confusing, the 550 W model that we are reviewing is sold as “NAXN” (and not “NAXN 82+”). Anyway, let’s see if this new power supply is a good pick.

Even though Enermax has its own factories, the NAXN 82+ 550 W is manufactured by a different company, CWT, which is the same company behind the NAXN 80+ models and, in fact, these new NAXN82+ models use the same platform as the NAXN 80+ models. It is important to know that the 750 W and 850 W models are manufactured by yet another company, High Power, and have a modular cabling system, a feature not available on the latest models. So, we have four different kinds of power supplies (NAXN, NAXN 80+, NAXN 82+ with modular cabling, and NAXN 82+ without modular cabling) using the same name. Some manufacturers simply can’t understand that using the same name for four different product lines is not a good marketing policy.

By the way, we’ve already reviewed the NAXN 80+ 600 W and the NAXN 82+ 750 W. 

Figure 1: Enermax NAXN 82+ 550 W power supply

Figure 2: Enermax NAXN 82+ 550 W power supply

The Enermax NAXN 82+ 550 W is 5.5” (140 mm) deep, using a 120 mm sleeve bearing fan on its bottom (Yate Loon D12SH-12).

This unit doesn’t have a modular cabling system. All cables are protected with nylon sleeves, which come from inside the unit. This power supply comes with the following cables:

• Main motherboard cable with a 20/24-pin connector, 19.7” (50 cm) long
• One cable with two ATX12V connectors that together form an EPS12V connector, 23.2” (59 cm) long
• One cable with one six/eight-pin connector for video cards, 19.7” (50 cm) long
• One cable with one six-pin connector for video cards, 19.7” (50 cm) long
• One cable with three SATA power connectors and one standard peripheral power connector, 18.5” (47 cm) to the first connector, 5.9” (15 cm) between connectors
• One cable with two SATA power connectors and one standard peripheral power connector, 18.5” (47 cm) to the first connector, 5.9” (15 cm) between connectors
• One cable with two standard peripheral power connectors and one floppy disk drive power connector, 18.5” (47 cm) to the first connector, 5.9” (15 cm) between connectors

All wires are 18 AWG, which is the minimum recommended gauge.

The cable configuration is fair for a 550 W power supply, with two video card power connectors and five SATA power connectors, but we’d like to see at least one more SATA power connector available.

Figure 3: Cables

Let’s now take an in-depth look inside this power supply.