Today's Hard|Forum Post
Today's Hard|Forum Post
Date:
Monday , January 24, 2011
Author:
Paul Johnson
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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ePower Juice Box 450W Auxiliary Power Supply Review

Looking for additional power for that new video card without buying and new PSU? The Juice Box is a widely sold auxiliary PSU that works in addition to your current PSU and this used to be sold under the Visiontek name also. Worth your cash?

Introduction

ePower Technology is one of the retail brands of long time power supply OEM Topower and they were established in the United States as a retail branch of Topower in 1990. Topower Computer Industrial Co., Ltd has been a large supplier of PSUs under both its own label and through contract production for other brands since 1986. Topower can be, or has been, found providing OEM services for a number of brands including ABS, Tagan, BFG, Mushkin, and Spire among a number of others. At times Topower units have struggled while others have been successful. When new higher wattage power supplies start hitting the market, Topower units can usually be found among them. In other words, early to market isn't always a blessing. Today though, we are not looking at another high power unit from ePower/Topower, but rather we are looking at a slightly different product in the way of the highest powered member of ePower/Topower's line of Juice Box auxiliary 5.25" power supplies; the Juice Box 450W (EP-450CD). This unit is from a completely different market segment than what we have seen from Topower before and should provide an interesting look at some of their other capabilities (previous power supplies have been decidedly mixed in capability in our previous reviews).

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Gettin' Juiced!

The ePower Juice Box 450W power supply is the first 5.25" bay auxiliary power supply we have reviewed to date so we have no real preconceived expectations for this unit. While ePower/Topower is not the only company making/reselling these types of products, others include FSP, CWT, etc, they are one of the big players and this exact unit is re-branded by Visiontek as well. So today, we are going to give this unit a look to see if this 5.25" auxiliary power supply fits its supposed niche of powering those power hungry SLI and CrossFireX setups without breaking the bank for the high end enthusiast. Since ePower provides nothing in the way of marketing on its web page, let’s move on and see what we can expect when a user purchases the ePower Juice Box 450W power supply in retail in terms of documentation, accessories, cable count, rail layout, output characteristics, and general build quality.