Verdict:

Still one of the best PSUs ever made.

The Enermax Galaxy has been our favourite high-end PSU for nearly two years, thanks to its combination of perfect stability, modular cables and quiet fans.

However, the Galaxy is pretty huge by modern standards, and its 220mm-long chassis means that it's too big to fit inside many cases. The Galaxy was the first PSU with five 12V rails, all of which are individually rated up to 17A. This may not sound like much compared with some of the turbo-charged single 12V-rail PSUs in this Labs test, but we've yet to find a PC that the Galaxy can't power; even a Skulltrail rig with two HD 3870 X2s bows to the Galaxy's might.

The first two 12V rails are responsible for powering the CPU(s), as the Galaxy has two 8-pin EPS12V connectors, while 12V3 powers the two captive 6+2-pin PCI-E cables. The 12V4 rail powers the captive 6-pin PCI-E cable and three Molex sockets, while 12V5 powers the two modular 6-pin PCI-E cables and the six modular sockets for additional Molex, S-ATA and FDD drives. An adaptor can convert the second 8-pin EPS12V connector to a 6+2-pin PCI-E cable if you have a 3-way SLI system. The 120mm intake fan and 80mm exhaust fan are both reasonably quiet.

The Galaxy has stood up well to the test of time, proving to be completely stable. However, at full load, it was 82 per cent efficient, a figure easily beaten by many more modern 1kW PSUs. As such, the Galaxy is no longer our first choice for a 1kW PSU, although it's still worth considering.

• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008
• Multi-GPU graphics - 20th June 2008
• CPU water cooling - 17th June 2008

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