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1 2 3 4 5 NextOctober 27, 2005 by Devon
Cooke
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Product
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ePower Lion EP-450P5-L1
450W ATX12V 1.3 Semi-Fanless Power Supply |
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Manufacturer
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ePower
Technology |
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Market Price
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US$130 |
What do you get when you
take an ATX12V 1.3 power supply, equip it with connectors for the latest motherboards
and VGA cards, then keep the fan from turning on until it's ready to overheat?
The ePower Lion EP-450P5-L1: A semi-fanless
power supply that bristles with bling and gadgetry.
ePower sells the Lion as a "better than fanless power supply", with
a fan "which will kick into gear only when the system is executing a load
over 250W". This is a lofty claim. The one other "hybrid" power supply we
looked at, the Antec
Phantom 500, powered up the fan once output hit 150W. Of course,
ePower does not specify how the 250W load was measured, and the 150W number
for the Antec comes from our own thermally realistic test setup, so it will be interesting
to see how the Lion fares in the same test. Fan
speed control in every PSU we've seen is based on temperature, not output load, so we will be sure to look at
the temperature when the fan turns on.
The Lion has many unusual features. Some of these
are just for bragging rights, but a couple are genuinely useful. ePower recognizes that cable management is an important part of system cooling, and
they include a package of multicolored velcro cable ties to help keep
cables where they belong. They also borrowed a feature from Antec's power
supplies and included a number of "Fan Only" headers.
The retail package lists the Lion's unofficial name: "Silent Engine".
Included in the box: Power supply, power cable, velcro cable ties, and
an 8.5" by 11" leaflet that passes for an instruction manual.
In general, the Lion is poorly documented. Most of what we know of the
power supply was gleaned from experimentation with the product; neither
the manual nor the web site was very helpful. In several cases, features were
mentioned without properly explaining how to use them or what they do.
The main issue is language: The manual has some good examples of Engrish.
Quality of documentation is mainly a problem for users who have
never installed a power supply before. Inexperienced users would be well-advised
to find a properly written guide (about installing a PSU) on the web rather
than relying on ePower to help them out.
FEATURE HIGHLIGHTS
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Feature Highlights of the ePower Lion (from ePower's
web site)
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| FEATURE & BRIEF |
COMMENT |
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Temperature Sensor: An amphibian temperature sensor lead out to
the chassis. This feature add to the case cooing feature of E Power Technology’s
power supply. The temperature sensor, together with the chassis fan lead,
will regulated the case fan speed when the internal temperature rise than
normal operation temperature.
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The temperature sensor may be amphibian, but the rest of the power
supply isn't. We politely suggest not operating the power supply underwater.
Joking aside, the temperature sensor refers to a thermistor
that controls the voltage supplied to the three "fan only" headers. It is completely independent of other PSU functions.
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| LED Fan: The Lion
power’s better than fan-less design also add a blue color LED light
to the stand-by fan, which will lights as the fan turns, another cool feature
to the gaming PC system |
Bling bling. |
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Case Fan Speed Control: To maximized the silent effect of E Power
Technology’s silent technology. All E Power technology’s gaming
power armed with 3 special power leads for case fans. These lead will
reduced the noise level created by case fans.
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See comment about Temperature Sensor. |
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SATA Power Lead: 2 SATA power lead on all E Power Technology’s
gaming power supply.
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Standard. |
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Enhanced VGA Power Lead: A patented special feature of the gaming
power series. The VGA power lead comes with a RMI filter and wire coat
to eliminate EMI‘s affect on VGA cards thus the ignoring snow and
water wave effect will be reduced. A great plus for PC gaming.
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Possibly useful when
overclocking, bragging rights for everyone else. |
| Power Fan Control Switch:
The Power Supply fan turns on automatically after reaching higher than 250W
loading, or user have to option to turn on the fan at anytime. |
The hard of hearing and
the thermally paranoid can run the fan at full speed all the time; most people
will want to let the fan be controlled automatically. |
OUTPUT SPECIFICATIONS
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SPECIFICATIONS: ePower Lion EP-450P5-L1
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AC Input
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100-120 / 200-240 VAC @ 60 / 50Hz
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Maximum AC Current
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10A @ 120V / 6A @ 240V
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DC Output
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+3.3V
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+5V
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+12V
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-12V
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-5V
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+5VSB
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Maximum Output Current
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28A
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45A
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28A
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1.0A
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0.8A
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2.5A
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Maximum Combined
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220W
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336W
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12W
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4W
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12.5W
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450W
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The output specs show that the Lion is based on an old
design. A huge amount of current is available on the +5V rail, which
is hardly used by modern systems. The Lion also includes a -5V rail, which
has been obsolete since ATX12V 1.3 was released in April 2003. ePower states
that the Lion is compliant with ATX12V 1.3. The current version of ATX12V is
2.2.
In spite of its old design, the Lion has enough output capacity on its +12V
rail to power most modern systems. Only extremely high-end systems with multiple
CPUs and/or graphics cards could possibly demand more power than this PSU is rated to deliver. The cables and connectors have been updated
so that it can power the latest hardware: Both a 24-pin motherboard connector
and a PCIe connector are included even though they are not a part of the older
spec.
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