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power supplies

Enermax Liberty EL500AWT 500W

· by John Chen
Manufacturer: Enermax · Price at review: $115.99 (≈$198 in 2026)

Introduction

Enermax has been a key player in the power supply industry for quite a long time now. Their power supplies are known to provide great reliable performance. I still have an Enermax power supply running in a secondary system back at home and it has been chugging along for five years now. I would frequently check the voltage rails on that power supply to see if it has degraded and if the rails have started drooping. Fortunately, it has not.

The next step in power supplies is going modular. I personally am not a big fan of modular power supplies since they focus too much on looks and convenience rather than performance. It is still inevitable that companies are going to release modular power supplies. Although Enermax was not one of the first few who took the initial step, they have finally succumbed to the high demand. Let us just hope that it continues the Enermax quality that has been around for years.

Enermax Liberty 500W Package

Enermax has included a great bundle with their Liberty series. All the cables are packed inside a Velcro bag so you can always keep track of your extra cables and not misplace them. Another cool thing Enermax included is the lanyard. It does not really do anything to make your power supply experience any better, but it does help them promote their brand name. Hey, freebies are always good, even if it’s useless sometimes. Then there are the usual accessories of AC adapter, screws, and user’s manual.

Enermax Liberty 500W External

The Enermax Liberty comes in a shiny all black finish. In the Liberty line, there are three wattage options–400W, 500W, and a beefy 620W. The sample we received is the 500W and should be more than plenty for the average overclocker and gamer. The Liberty 500W uses a large 120mm fan for cooling. The heat exits through the rear of the power supply via the honeycomb vents. This kind of cooling design can be found on many current power supplies since the large fan pushes a lot of air without increasing the noise level. The other end of the power supply is where the cable connections are located. There is a total of eight connectors with two color coded red. These red connectors are specifically for PCI-E cables ONLY.

Enermax Liberty 500W Internal

While Enermax has always provided reliable power supplies, their internal components never really amazed me. One of the main reasons is that the heatsinks they use are never really big and beefy. This means that help in heat dissipation won’t be at an optimal. The fan may do a good job at keeping the internals cool, but the larger the heatsinks, the more surface area to absorb heat released off by the internal components. Looking at the Liberty 500W, the internals do not look very exciting. The PCB used for the components is not extremely large, meaning that there is not a lot of components fitted inside the PSU. There is a lot of empty space within the unit.

Connectors

Enermax has done a really great job with the mix match of connectors on their cables. Unlike other companies that put all the same connectors on a single cable, Enermax mixed up the connectors so that you won’t need as many cables for your system. For example, instead of having a single cable with two SATA connectors, Enermax has the cable with a 4pin Molex, a SATA, another 4pin Molex, and then followed by another SATA. This means that if you include older PATA drives with your SATA drives, you will only need one cable to stretch to your hard drive cage, instead of two. There is a total of two 4pin floppy connectors, eight SATA connectors, and eight 4pin Molex connectors. Connectors sure are plentiful. For those who run high end gaming systems with dual video cards, there are two PCI-E connectors included. The 24pin native ATX connector allows the extra four pins to be snapped off to fit older motherboards that use 20pin ATX headers. The CPU dedicated 12v cable comes native as an 8pin connector. For the majority of motherboards that do not use an 8pin header, the cable allows the connector to split into two 4pin connectors. This eliminates the need to include two separate cables. Lastly, there is a fan RPM monitor header to allow monitoring of the fan in the Liberty. The shot below shows the Liberty installed in the Thermaltake Swing case. I only needed a single cable to power my SATA drive, DVD+/-RW, and floppy drive.

Specifications

The 12v is considered to be the rail that receives highest load and the rail that powers most of the hardware, especially if you are running dual video cards. With that in mind, Enermax pumped up their dual 12v rails with 22A to each line, resulting with an excellent 44A total to the 12v. The 3.3v and 5v rails are decent with 28A and 30A respectively.

One great thing about Enermax power supplies that I have always liked is their level of protections.

Another great thing about Enermax power supplies is that they were one of the first to release high efficiency power supplies. The Liberty 500W comes with a current high of 80%! The current standard so far for high end power supplies is around 70%-75%. 80% is considered to be a lot better. The power supply efficiency means more of the electricity coming in from the outlet is being used, which means a less costly electricity bill.

Unfortunately, I could not find any details on the 120mm fan. I do know that the fan pushes a decent amount of air and operates very quietly.

Testing Setup and Results

Test Setup and Method:

Running Stock:

Running Overclocked:

Testing the power supply is a tedious task. Like cooling products, the “proper” testing method is long and strenuous. It involves high end equipment and testing materials that we simply cannot get our hands on. A simple proper testing method would be to test the wattage draw from the AC outlet, voltage rail fluctuations, wattage fluctuations under high operating temperatures, power efficiency, and the power supply’s reaction to low input voltage. But because this site is dedicated more to overclocking, we’ll check for voltage fluctuations in an overclocked environment. After all, that is what overclockers generally care about.

Results:

To test the power supply, a digital multimeter was used. For idle voltage readings, the system was left on the desktop not running any programs. For full load, the system ran 2 instances of CPU Burn-in, Prime95 torture test for maximum power consumption, PCMark2004 hard drive benchmark, and the Nature test in 3DMark2001SE. CPU Burn-in is a good program to maximize the CPU load. The Liberty 500W did not even break a sweat!

Conclusion and Thoughts

The Liberty 500W is a great example of what Enermax power supplies are known for–great reliable performance. The ability to have modular cables is great and greatly improves cable management and case airflow, but the way Enermax implemented the connectors on their power cables is ingenious. I only had to use a single power cable to power my SATA drive, DVD+/-RW, and floppy drive. I was quite boggled why Enermax would implement their connectors in such a way, but realized that it greatly reduces cable clutter. The internals of the Liberty 500W may not be too insanely beefy, but it does provide solid performance even for an overclocked system. Enermax has done a great job with their first modular power supply. The high 80% efficiency is what I am loving right now. I leave my computer on all the time so having a high efficiency does lower my electricity bill. How can I complain?

Pros:

  • Great performance
  • Provides 44A total to 12v rails
  • Very affordable for a 500W PSU
  • Silent
  • Connectors well implemented on power cable
  • Excellent efficiency at 80%

Cons:

  • Internals look a bit weak

We would like to thank Enermax for providing us the sample. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to hit us up in the forums. You can also check out more of our latest reviews on the front page.