OCZ EliteXStream 1000w ATX PSU

 

Back in May of last year Overclock3D brought you news of OCZ’s acquisition of well respected PSU manufacturer PC Power & Cooling. Many questioned their reasoning as OCZ already had an arsenal of top quality PSU’s to their name, with models such as the GameXStream and ProXStream racking up awards the world over. However, since their much loved PowerStream unit reached the end of it’s life, OCZ have been missing one thing…a high powered, single +12v rail PSU.

 

While most manufacturers believe that PSU’s with a greater number of +12v rails will always perform (and sell?) better than those with only one or two rails, many enthusiasts including us here at OC3D would rather have all of our +12v power available to us on a single, high-powered rail. Why? simply because a true multi-railed PSU limits the user to a maximum of ~20a per rail. If any combination of components exceeds this limit, then the PSU is essentially useless.

 

Of course, PCP&C have quite a bit of experience in the single-railed PSU business, with units such as the Turbo-Cool 1KW-SR and Turbo-Cool 1200 packing upwards of 80 amps on their +12v rail. But where does PCP&C fit in to our review of OCZ’s latest kilowatt unit; the EliteXStream?

 

Well, it was only a matter of time before some of PCP&C’s expertise started rubbing off on OCZ, and while the EliteXStream may just look like a re-hash of GameXStream and StealthXStream on the surface, there’s a lot more to this unit than meets the eye. However, before we perform a dissection on the unit, let’s check out some of the specs sent to us by OCZ:

 

 

One of the lesser known facts about PSU’s is that as the temperature of the components inside the unit increases, the maximum sustainable power output decreases. Many less-reputable manufacturers take advantage of this fact by measuring the power output of their units at unrealistic ambient temperatures of around 25°C. However, as we can see from the specs above, the EliteXstream is designed to deliver its full 1kw payload at a much more realistic temperature of 50°C.

 

OCZ have measured the efficiency of the EliteXstream at an “ultra-high” level of 82%. While this certainly exceeds the requirements of the 80Plus certification programme, it doesn’t quite match up to some of the latest units from other manufacturers which are capable of 85-87% efficiency.

 

Finally, the last of the noteworthy specifications has to be the 5yr Premium PowerSwap warranty. This warranty ensures that you receive a brand new PSU from OCZ should yours ever fail, avoiding those lengthy waits commonly encountered with manufacturers who insist on trying to repair your PSU rather than replace it. Of course, any warranty is only worth its salt if you can actually make contact the manufacturer. So we put OCZ’s support department to the test by raising a faux RMA request on a ProXstream unit….and sure enough, within 2 hours we had a reply from them with details of how to send out unit back.