OCZ PowerStream 520W PSU

[Apoptosis]

YVES did a great write up and to be quite honest with you I like his writing style. Makes the article fun to read and "legit" if you ask me. Yves has more PSU's coming, so get ready!

I admit, I’m a geek, dork, well what ever you want to call me. I get giddy and fixate on new hardware like a stoner to Twinkies. I like to think I have good reason, but most of the time it's nothing more than my obsession with electrons. This time around OCZ has provided me something worth my fanaticism. For your erotic … geek pleasure I present the OCZ PowerStream 520. OCZ made a name for themselves in the memory market by creating top quality products. It looks like they aim to do the same in the power supply market. OCZ has been releasing products that help modders, overclockers, and (flinch) “enthusiasts” tweak their computers for absolute performance.

Article Link

[infinitevalence]

aww shucks, man....

[Thorsson]

Yeah but how can you really rate this PSU unless you try it in an OC'd SLI/RAID beast? I mean why else do you need 520W?

[Apoptosis]

Thorsson,

Welcome to the forums! I have this PSU running a 3.46EE (1066FSB), i925XE chipset, Dual 74mb Raptor Raid0 drives, a Geforce 6800 GT, and 2GB Crucial Ballistix memory. When OC'ing and gaming I feel that it needs all the 520W it can get. Although with the power consumption meter that I had (cough) it was only pulling like 290 Watts when running at load.

[FZ1]

Yeah but how can you really rate this PSU unless you try it in an OC'd SLI/RAID beast?

Hey, thanks for volunteering!

[capper5016]

I'm actually working on the DFI LANParty NF4 SLI-DR right now with the OCZ PSU. For full effect I'm testing the board in SLI and single card mode, testing it with a Maxtor Diamond Max 10 to see what effects SATA II and NCQ have on performance, I'll also throw a RAID array on it if you want.
This is going to be a long review with all that this board brings to the system.

[infinitevalence]

Yeah but how can you really rate this PSU unless you try it in an OC'd SLI/RAID beast? I mean why else do you need 520W?

To tell you the truth i cant, the thing is most overclocked computer even with sli dont pull more than 300-350w. That means that i can get a good idea of how much head room the power supply has by loading it as much as i can and then testing the voltages. I can tell you confidently that you could run a oc'ed p4 3.0 or higher with SLI 6800 ultras, raid 0 15k scsi drives, and a water cooling setup up no problem. at most that set up would pull 350w, and most of it on the 12v which is raited for 400 alone. I have to say so far i have seen few power supplys that are worth $150 this one is.

[Xerxes]

i hate you capper