Enermax Digifanless 550 W – the most powerful digital fanless unit

Conclusion and evaluation

The Enermax Digifanless 550 W (EDF550AWN) passed the combined and crossload testing in accordance with ATX specification so according to my evaluation methodology, it deserves its evaluation. There are basically four bad things about this unit and besides very high price, none of them are so serious: the voltage regulation on +3.3 and +5 V rails could be better. Having digital regulation of even these rails, the score would be quite high. Also the −12 V rail did not handle fan load very well with such small capacitance it has, but in real world you probably won’t be using −12 V at all and most likely not with fan so it doesn’t matter. The last problem in my eyes is that individual cable sleeving – that is not helping cable management at all!

The build quality is average which is actually quite good for Channel Well and such complicated unit ☺ Only top-quality components are used (which would be terrible if Enermax did otherwise for that price!). It is good this unit has so many PCIe connectors to distribute the power, however, after previous experience with Platimax and bitcoin miner, it should definitely have had golden-plated pins. For the price the whole unit could be golden-plated!

Very good ripple suppression, high efficiency, all protections working. So far so good! Passive operation even with the Sweater contest for more than an hour, oh yeah baby! Then fully modular cabling and digital control, even though basic so far, but already with quite accurate power and temperature readings. It can come in handy. And there is more, you also get some extra equipment in the box. And five-year warranty, even though it could be longer, Seasonic provides 7-year for their fanless units.

So the evaluation for the Enermax Digifanless 550 W (EDF550AWN) as high-end unit is as follows:

• components used: 13 p. (− for thinner wires, − for lack of gold-plating, + for unplugging clips, + for extra saver technology, + for primary and secondary side overrating)
• built quality: -3 p. (− for worse soldering and cleaning)
• voltage regulation: 2.5 p. (− for combined loading, − for crossloading, + for ±12 V regulation)
• ripple: 8.5 p. (− for combined loading, − for crossloading)
• efficiency: 15 p. (+ for high efficiency of both stand-by and main supply)
• price: 2 p. (− for higher price per watt)
• others: 26 p. (+ for extra equipment, + for longer warranty, + for working OTP and winning the Sweater contest, + for digital control/PSU state reading, + for modular cabling)

I think the unit clearly deserves our Silver award! 

Pros	+  high efficiency +  high-quality capacitors, great component overrating +  very good ripple suppression (excl. −12 V) +  fully-modular cabling +  digital control/status readings +  fanless +  complete set of working protections +  very good ±12 V regulation +  very high overload possibility +  longer warranty +  capable of working with almost no cooling
Cons	− worse voltage regulation − worse soldering − very high price
Be aware of…	/?\ cooling/unit orientation requirements

Thanks

I thank the Enermax company for providing the Enermax Digifanless 550 W.

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