2 - Snap, I've got the power ...

I've got the power ...

Right then, the OCZ Technology ModXtream PRO 600 Watt is what we are looking at today. In essence it's a highly efficient, very silent, modular PSU.

The PSU itself packs enough punch for a simple SLI configuration as it has dual 12V rails for some serious graphics power.

The product will not only have a huge amount of power across all rails, but does so with very little noise. Furthermore you'll notice that the 600 Modxtream PRO has terrific aesthetics which we'll show you later.
The PSU comes with advanced cable management (e.g. modable cables). You install the cables that you need, and that's it. Supplied are several connectors, the majority of which are detachable. For SLI and Crossfire you can go up-to two graphics cards with the cables supplied, though a little embarrassing, you only will get one 6-pin and one 6+2-pin connector for the graphics.  The PCIe cables are PCIe 2.0 compliant, meaning you'll also can connect the new 8-pin (6+2-pin) header that can carry 150 Watts per cable. We'll show you in the photo shoot.

Power distribution wise we notice a quad 12V rail with plenty of voltage available to serve high-end needs.

• +3.3V: 25A
• +5V: 25A,
• +12V1: 25A, +12V2: 25A
• -12V: 0,8A
• +5VSB: 4A (peak 5A)

As you can see, that's quite a lot of AMPage at the 12V lines. Considering that a GeForce Ultra consumes 10 A per card, you can do the math. It should be plenty even for a high-end SLI gaming system; however, remember that you'll only get one 8-pin (6+2-pin) header and one 6-pin header for your graphics cards. So if you need more for say 9800 GTX SLI you'll need to nick them from the Molex cable and use a converter cables.

Other than that, it has great modular connectivity, a three year warranty .. and a price that's hard to beat. This 600 Watt model will cost you roughly 69 EUR / 89 USD.

So there you have it, a 600 Watts ready for dual GFX solutions and multi-core (server) systems.

Power Demand

Three maybe four years ago you guys ... we all had 350 Watt power supplies where as 450 is now the minimum entry level PSU. 550 Watt is pretty normal, and high-end starts at roughly 600 Watt. But why do we need 650 Watts you ask ? Well; high-end gamers PCs these days need a good power supply unit (PSU). The power consumption that a PC can create these days is a little unheard of.

Increased transistor counts for processors (GPU/CPU) versus higher clock frequencies and most of all do not ignore the "Dual & Quad" trend. We have multi-core CPUs, and instead of one graphics cards we now have the option to double, triple or Quad up graphics power with cards in SLI or CrossfireX mode.

Though an extremely small percentage of PC consumers really makes use of such options, it is a trend and multi-GPU gaming and computing is up and coming.
Yet a current high-end rig (which we'll use to test this PSU today) averages at 400-500 Watts power consumption. Now you can see why these little old grey 300 Watt PSU's we had 3 years ago are by far not sufficient anymore.

A PSU needs to manage the power demand in a very secure way otherwise it'll create instability throughout the system. That instability can result as crashes, freezes, underperforming software such as games that run poorly when the graphics card isn't fed enough power, and even resets or shuts down the system completely. Please do not underestimate the importance of the PSU.