14 DAY TRIAL // Although present day computer power supply units have become a great deal more power efficient compared to their just a few years older counterparts, regulatory powers everywhere still try to lower those requirements even further a EU law requiring all computers to consume no more than 1W during off-state or standby, Enermax just announcing they are revising their Modu82+ II and Pro82+ II PSU in order to comply with that rule.
Dubbed ErP Lot 6, this law has already entered into effect and requires that every PC system sold from the 7th of January 2010 onwards to use less than 1W of power during off-state or standby.
If the systems don't manage to comply with this rule, it won't get a CE certification, making it impossible for the manufacturer to sell its system across the 27 member states of the European Union.
Furthermore, the limit will be lowered once more in just a few years time, as from the 7th of January 2013 on, all systems sold across the EU will have to consume a maximum of 0,5W of power during standby or power-off.
In order to meet these requirements, the main responsibility falls on the motherboard and the PSU used inside the system, a high efficiency PSU consuming a minimum of 0.6W, far to much for it to meet EU's norm.
Since standby power consumption as well as power-off power depends primarily on the 5V rail of the PSU, Enermax has improved the efficiency of that rail, reaching 55% efficiency compared to the usual 35% of the previous generation PSUs.
According to the KitGuru website, Enermax is one of the first manufacturers to react to this regulation, the very first PSUs to get the improved 5V rail being the Pro82+ II and Modu82+ II models, that are scheduled to be launched early in 2011.