Date:
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Author:
Paul Johnson
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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OCZ 700W ModXStream Pro Power Supply

700 watt power supplies are easy to build right? Not really. These “middle of the road” units not only have to put out a lot of quality power, but are probably the most exposed to pricing competition when it comes to big power. We put the screws to the new OCZ ModXStream.

Introduction

OCZ Technology is a company that has been around in various forms since 2000 and is most well known for marketing high performance memory modules. Like a number of other companies OCZ has diversified their offerings to include power supplies, cooling products, and even video cards once more. This diversification into the power supply field was never more obvious than when last year OCZ Technology acquired PC Power & Cooling naming PC Power & Cooling’s Doug Dodson as Chief Technology Officer. With this move OCZ certainly can be seen as becoming a player in the enthusiast power supply market, but OCZ's and PC Power & Cooling's approaches to power supplies have historically been diametric opposites so today’s look at a fourth OCZ power supply, and the first not rated at 1000w, should be another interesting one. The new OCZ 700W ModXStream Pro Power Supply will certainly be an interesting one as this unit breaks one of PC Power & Cooling’s tenets of good power supplies as it is a modular unit but still comes with PC Power and Cooling’s stamp of approval on the unit's test report. As with the EliteXStream 1000w this is a post-PC Power & Cooling acquisition product, but OCZ has not gone with any of PC Power & Cooling’s OEM partners but rather has turned to yet another OEM, Sirtec.

Sirtec International CO. Ltd. (Sirtec) has one of the longer company histories of power supply manufacturers having been founded in 1968, but obviously not manufacturing power supplies for PCs at that time. In the interim ~40 years Sirtec has diversified and is involved in not only power supply manufacturing but also other electronics, molding, and plastic development. Over the years Sirtec has been best known to computer enthusiasts when their power supplies were the power behind the original Thermaltake power supplies and Highpower brand power supplies. Sirtec power supplies over the years have garnered mixed reviews so it will be of great interest to see how their partnership with OCZ has worked out.

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Mod to the XStream!

Of late, we have seen a number of ~700w power supplies in our testing and sadly it seems that this power level has been somewhat difficult on units exposed to HardOCP’s review process. Of the last four 700 watt units we have reviewed, only two have completed testing and both of those passing units completed testing with caveats attached. These numbers are certainly skewed a bit as three of these units were variations on the FSP Epsilon platform, so when OCZ produced a new 700 watt unit that did not come from any of the usual suspects we jumped at the opportunity to review it hoping to shake the 700 watt jinx. So now that we have the new OCZ 700W ModXStream Pro, what does OCZ bring to the table besides a different OEM than what we have seen previously?

The ModXStream Pro Series is the superlative solution for driving today's gaming systems, and can power both NVIDIA® SLI™ and ATI CrossFire™ modes. Professional-grade yet designed with gamers and modders in mind, this PSU is stable, robust, and sports a sleek look and compact form factor. Kept ultra-cool with a load-controlled 140mm fan, the ModXStream Pro was engineered to be the quietest PSU available and eliminate distracting noises from your PC. Highly efficient, featuring up to 86% efficiency at typical load and up to 82% at full load, this leading-edge power supply remains rock solid and powerful while retaining superior efficiency under load.

The OCZ ModXStream provides Universal Input and Active PFC (Power Factor Correction) to effectively regulate input voltage across worldwide power grids and maintain an economical, stable supply of power. Available in configurations ranging from 400W to 700W and backed with OCZ’s 3-year “power swap” warranty, the OCZ ModXStream Pro gives you the ultimate power and peace of mind to ensure the stability, low noise, optimized air flow, and efficiency of your gaming system.

Let’s move on and see what we have to look forward to when we purchase the OCZ OCZ 700W ModXStream Pro power supply in terms of documentation, accessories, cable count, rail layout, output characteristics, and general build quality.