Power Supply Roundup: 730W to 900W
by Christoph Katzer on November 22, 2007 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
OCZ ModXStream - 780W
OCZ sent their ModXStream 780W power supply. It has modular cables to help with cable management. The housing comes in black and as the picture shows fingerprints are easily visible. The exhaust at the back is quite open and allows for good airflow. The 120mm fan is installed on the bottom of the unit. Everything comes packed in a very small box, with the standard accessories like screws, a power cord, and the user manual.
The label shows 20A for each of the four 12V rails and a combined power of up to 755W. As we saw on the Amacrox power supply, the ModXStream also contains a table with 12V distributions for the different connectors. OCZ made some changes here and places one ATX connector on 12V1; a PCI-E connector and the second CPU rail are on 12V2. The peripherals are on 12V3, and the main graphics card gets 12V4.
Cables and Connectors
All the cables are sleeved and the cable management system allows the user to detach cables that aren't needed. The sockets on the PSU have different pin-outs so the user can't attach the harnesses to the wrong jack. Like the 730W/770W Hiper, the ModXStream is a little short on connectors for a 780W unit. It only has four Molex and six SATA connectors.
The internals are nice and clean, like we saw on another unit. The ModXStream looks a little empty inside because of the enormous housing length; the extra length is unnecessary and actually makes the ModXStream unable to fit in certain cases. There's also enough space on the sides for eddies to occur in the airflow. The temperature results of the heatsinks during testing confirm this, as we measured up to 90°C at the middle heatsink. With a 50°C exhaust temperature, clearly the airflow isn't working properly.
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tynopik - Friday, November 23, 2007 - link
the efficiency charts are fantastic as you can see exactly how all the units compare at a specified wattagebut then you go back and do the acoustics charts by % load? why?
if i want to see how all the units compare at a 500w load, there's no easy way to do that as that might be a 68% load on one unit and a 55% load on another unit
Christoph Katzer - Friday, November 23, 2007 - link
Next time will doVidmar - Saturday, November 24, 2007 - link
Thanks for doing the charts in watts instead of load. I've been asking for that for some time. As has been said here it makes it much easier to find a good unit based upon a known wattage your system uses. Good article.tynopik - Friday, November 23, 2007 - link
great!and then once all units are tested to the same baseline, that opens the door for dynamic comparisons
as you build up a database of reviews, you could have a dynamic system where you can choose a 400-500 watt unit you reviewed 9 months ago and a 600 watt unit you just reviewed and it will generate the comparison charts on the fly
something for the future perhaps ;)
Etern205 - Thursday, November 22, 2007 - link
Newegg is selling the Antec TruePower Quattro 850 at $249 whilethe 1KW version is selling for $299 with a -$80 instant rebate!
850w version
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
1KW version
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Traciatim - Thursday, November 22, 2007 - link
Could you please design and test with a machine that actually uses 700+ Watts of DC output?Jjoshua2 - Thursday, November 22, 2007 - link
I like the old review better. I don't have time to read the whole reviews, so I just read the conclusion and then go over a few interesting paragraphs. I hope you have a longer conclusion next time!Thanks.
Christoph Katzer - Friday, November 23, 2007 - link
Ehm there are 8 pages comparison/conclusion.... not enough?Of course people not appreciating the work and just read the last page find it boring... so next time I write a page about 10 PSUs and that'd be enough? ...
Googer - Thursday, November 22, 2007 - link
Check the hot deals section of Anandtech forums, a little while ago I posted a $50 price drop of the Silencer 750 down to a budgetable $150.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...">http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...=40&...
Christoph Katzer - Friday, November 23, 2007 - link
That would be a really good deal indeed.