A Closer Look:

The NesteQ ECS5001 comes in a mat black, smooth finished chassis. It's pretty simple in terms of flash. There aren't any exotic, crazy colors here. The PSU makes use of a 130mm fan to keep the internal components cool as well as move air out of your case.

AMD Entertainment Booth

Speaking of components, the PSU has some serious weight for its size and rating. There are several heat sinks spanning the chassis crossing each other with 450V 330uF caps underneath. The larger switching transistors are connected to more hefty aluminum sinks which help keep any heat from building up in the component otherwise, it would probably overheat. The wiring is also quite thick which tends to be another good sign of a quality build. Basically, all this gives the unit the bulk of its weight.

Packed Components

Cable Connectors

It wasn't too hard to spot, but you can see that their cabling system is unique in that several of the cables can be connected to others. They designed the cables so that you can extend, or patch, the cable to make it longer if needed. Or perhaps you need a specific cable connection, then it's possible to do so with their system.

The ECCD (Ergonomic Cable Connection Design) is actually a very cool concept. How many times have you connected a power supply in your new spacious case only to discover the cabling isn't quite long enough to reach where you would like? The specs diagram shows the use of an expansion cable as well as the default cables capable of different configurations.

Cables & Zip Ties

While the ECCD is an excellent feature for the NesteQ line, I personally wouldn't mind seeing other PSU manufacturers offering some sort of patch cable, or just make them a little longer. If a power supply costs over $100, it should automatically come with something like this. This would help simplify and improve cable management all around.

The Patch Cable Connections

Here you can see the number of Output Cable Connectors that come with the power supply. You can also see how many and which kinds of cables come with the ECS5001.

AMD Entertainment Booth

The only gripe I have with today's current power supplies is the number of FDD (Floppy Disk Drive) cables. As of late, I've used maybe one FDD cable over the last year since there isn't much of a need for one, much more, two. Finally, NesteQ has decided to offer the FDD cables as extensions rather than allocate an entire cable.

PCI Express

Expansion Cables

FDD Cables

The ECS5001 comes with a decent amount of amperage for just a 500 watt PSU. You get 25 Amps from both the +5V and +3.3V rails, as well as 18 Amps from dual +12V rails. It's nice to see more amps applied to the 12 Volt rails rather than the +5 or +3.3 volt rails like cheap PSU models. The overall maximum power output should be a minimum of 500 watts.

Specifications Sticker

The efficiency rating is 80% with a typical maximum 86% efficiency which is almost a requirement these days when boasting "powerful and efficient" performance. This hopefully equates in to more stable rails no matter what kind of load draw is placed on it. And with the required Over Volting protection you'd expect from an enthusiast PSU, it should be able to hold a full load and possible extra.

When I see a spec sticker like this listing 0.96 PFC rating and fan noise of 25dB or less, thoughts of testing came to mind. And being a new comer to the ring, so to speak, you can be a full load test is coming. So let's get on with it.

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