E-Power Silent Engine 550W Power Supply (PSU)

Interior and ATX 2.01 compliance

Opening up the E-Power gives us the usual site of heat sinks wires capacitors and other electronic components. To keep ripple to a minimum the Tiger 550w employs some rather large capacitors, a very reassuring sight to say the least.

From the side the MOSFETTS are visible, they are mounted to the large black heat sinks that protrude from the PCB.

Sitting alone on a riser card is the voltage regulation circuit

One thing that concerns me is this recent trend in the power supply manufacturing industry where they either claim ATX 2.01 compliance or EPS 2.0 compliance but then fail to deliver on that claim. As we have pointed out in the past to comply with ATX 2.01 standards of two independently regulated 12v rails must be present. For EPS 2.0 compliance at least 2 independently regulated 12v rails are required, with a recommended 3. The general rule of thumb is any power supply rated for 30A on the 12v rail should have two independent 12v rails. While it looks like all the circuitry is in place for this power regulation any semblance of independence is lost when they solder ALL the 12v lines to the same point on the PCB. Can we really call it two rivers if all it does is go around an island and then flow back into its self? No we cant.

Now i want to make it clear that having only a single 12v rail is not necessarily a bad thing. Quite the contrary, when overclocking it is often a better thing than having split 12v rails. Many overclockers prefer a single high amperage 12v line to feed power hungry Intel single and dual core as well as the new AMD dual core chips. Having a single 12v line insures that the processor does not run out of the required amperage.

So what is the problem here? The fact that companies are claiming one thing and then selling something different. I would ask as we did to SkyHawk that they either relabel the units and offer a trade to people who require true ATX/EPS compliance or fix the design so that there are in fact two independent 12v rails. There is also a subtle difference between compatible and compliant. A compatible ATX 2.01 or EPS 2.0 power supply simply has the proper connections and meets the overall wattage requirements. Even this distinction would satisfy my issues with marketing and recommending the E-Power Tiger 550w power supply.