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.
For the serious gamer, a 350W PSU should be the norm - why you ask me? At idle, a single-processor, single-gpu machine uses about 20% of the PSU's rating, and that is where the serious efficiency benefit is for forward converter topologies. Right now, gamers use ridiculous 500+ W power supplies which leaves the PSU uselessly wasting energy at idle, where the computer is most of the time anyway.
This is by the way also one of the humongous errors made by various reviewers (not anandtech by the way) - they for instance try to test a C2D E5200 (extremely power-efficient) but decide to run it in their usual test bench which inevitably contains a power supply designed for overclocking. Then they're surprised that the E5200 seems to be no more efficient than a Q9600 or something, but in reality the E5200 system consumes so little that the PSU is hopelessly inefficient at that point. If you use this knowledge you can build machines that idle below 35W by just and only using a very low-wattage power supply (barring the truly high-end video cards of course)
These new PSU's are great in that they get very high efficiencies at anything pretty much above 20%. Other brands are also almost there (25-30%), so it's kind of moot. You're not going to see large price differences if they made 350 or 400w because the main cost is in design and manufacturing, not so much the difference between parts (some but not the bulk of the cost).
Check out the street prices, the MSRP of the Modu87+ was 150€ and it's now already at 116€...
Or do one of the more creative/inventive things kids have been known to do. Like perhaps try to stuff a peanut butter and jelly sandwich through the fan grill . . .
But right, I do not think any responsible parent is going to let their young kids play around with the power supply of a computer in the first place. I would think Enermax needs to work on their marketing a bit more . . . The video stinks, and screams "skiddy". CordGuard is not a terrible idea, but come on. Are they really trying to market a $.05 gimmick ? When did the name Enermax sink so low ?
Personally, I would like to see some aircraft quality (screw-on ) connectors for the removable power connections, and a plain black fan would be perfectly fine with me. Also, I agree that the name badge on the fan guard is not necessary. Yes, I *would* pay more ( fair price ) for the above mentioned connectors.
Copyright © 1997-2012 AnandTech, Inc. All rights reserved. Terms, Conditions and Privacy Information.
Click Here for Advertising Information
