Ensemble

Click to enlarge

The Tuniq – best known for their CPU coolers – Ensemble comes in a catastrophically boring box, with a black background, white text and a low res stock photo in the middle. The back of the box is worse, with a list of features that the power supply hosts along with some graphs about the noise output. If you enjoy colour, you won’t enjoy this box.

The Ensemble comes in a couple of different configurations ranging from 750W, up to 1200W with an 850W and 1000W models available in between. This box can hold either a 1000W or a 1200W in either silver or black, and I have my hands on the full-blown I-have-a-lower-wattage-immersion-heater 1200W version in black.

Click to enlarge

The box contains the power supply itself, along with a manual, ten Velcro cable ties, PCI-e 8pin to 6pin converters x 2, molex to SATA converter, and a couple of Y molex cables. The worst part of this bundle is the manual; it’s shockingly translated with a host of spelling mistakes, clumsy translation and questionable layout. On the plus side, the manual explains the key information that you’ll want from it, explaining the amp levels on each of the four independent rails.

Click to enlarge

Speaking of which, the word ‘independent’ sounds like a plus point to the product, whereas in actual fact it could be a negative as explained in our glossary article on power supplies found here. The four 12v rails each pump a minimum of 20A with the third and fourth going upto 25A. According to the table in the manual, each of the four different wattage power supplies sold by Tuniq can do the same, but their total current varies, leading me to believe than an individual rail can use as much power as it needs until this ceiling current is reached.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

The unit itself is a longer-than-average box (220 x 148 x 85mm) which contains two fans, with the largest being a 13.5cm ball bearing fan on the bottom, and then a smaller 80mm fan at the rear. This rear fan appears to have a golf-ball style finish on it for some reason. The outer casing is finished with a long stroke brushed effect which looks pretty good and is smooth to the touch. The bottom of the PSU is dominated by the fan grill with the silver Tuniq logo in the middle. Above this and you’ll find a sticker explaining the fan delay feature, which I first saw on Enermax PSU’s a long time ago. The idea is that the power supply senses how hot it is after your PC has been turned off, and will keep its fans going until the temperature dips below 50C. This means that your PC is vented of hot air once it’s turned off, rather than simmering in its now dormant state; which Tuniq explains will extend the lifetime of your components.
The unit is unfortunately not of the modular variety, and comes with the usual tail of nylon braided wires. You get a host of cables; an 8pin EPS connector, a 4+4pin EPS, two cables each with three SATA connectors, two chains each with three molex’s and a FDD power connector, two PCI-e 6pin, two PCI-e 8pin, standard ATX 24pin (NOT 20+4) and a fan RPM cable. If your graphics card doesn’t support the use of the newer 8pin PCI-e plug, then the two provided converters will keep you happy, apart from the additional cable bulk.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

The most useful of the additional cables, is the molex to SATA converter that will allow users of a single optical drive and a single hard disc to use one of the molex chains, rather than routing another cable for a single device. It would have been better on a modular design however. The inclusion of a molex Y splitter seems unnecessary in my mind, but at least you’ll have the option to have 8 molex devices rather than the stock 6, and the additional cable length the splitter provides.

Click to enlarge

Some of the cables are labelled, explaining their purpose and the rail which feeds them. This is especially important with the use of the 8pin EPS plug, which could be confused with an 8pin PCI-e cable and cause problems. The RPM cable is ambiguous as to which fan it senses, as it’s unlikely it takes an average of both the 12.5 and 8cm fans. It’s not a required cable, and the PSU will work perfectly without it, but it allows you to monitor the speed at which the power supply decides is necessary to cool its transformers.