OCZ StealthXStream 500 Watt Power Supply

OCZ has been catering power supplies to the PC enthusiast ever since they began to offer power supplies in their product lineup.  They are most famous for their top performing memory modules.  When it comes to PC enthusiasts, they are looking for power supplies that stand out of the ordinary, offer great performance and great value. Today, we look at the StealthXStream line of power supplies, which is a fairly new series.  This series of power supplies comes in two different wattages, 500 Watts and 600 Watts.  We will look at the 500 watt version.   

Upon opening the box, you will find the users manual, a power cable, and four screws.  The manual is basic, but has enough information for the user to properly install this power supply.

Here are some of the main features and specifications from OCZ's website:

The Power Supply:

The power supply features a black matte colored chassis, which is a bit plain, but still ends up looking great.

The bottom of the power supply features a 120mm fan.

*Source: OCZ website

Looking at the side of the power supply, there is an OCZ label with their logo on it, the model number and a condensed specification list. Note that there are two +12v rails, each supplying up to 18 Amps, which is good for peripherals requiring more power.  This power supply is manufactured by Fortron Source.

The rear (outside of case) features an large grille to exhaust hot air from the 120mm fan.  There is an on/off switch, and an AC Power Input. This power supply offers a full range power circuit and Active PFC, so there is no need for a 110v / 240v switch.  Note that the on/off switch glows blue when it is switched to the 'on' position.

The Cables:

This power supply features the following cables:

-A 20/24-pin ATX power connector.

-A 4-pin CPU ATX Power Connector

-1x  6+2-Pin PCI-Express Power Connector.

-4x Molex Power Connectors and 1x Floppy Power Connectors.

-2x Serial ATA Power Connectors.

Cooling:

Cooling is handled by a single 120mm fan in this power supply.  During testing, this fan did speed up so that I could hear a some wind resistance sound, but it was not loud enough to be annoying.  During idle / less intensive tasks, the power supply was quiet, almost silent and could not be heard over the case and CPU fans.  I was satisfied with the sound characteristics of this power supply.

Inside the Power Supply:

* Taking this power supply apart will void the warranty.

-Inside this power supply, there are three surprisingly thin silver finned heatsinks to dissipate the heat from the voltage rectifiers.  There is a large transformer in the middle with a smaller underneath it.  A large sized CapXon primary capacitor can also be seen. 

-A CapXon primary capacitor that is rated for up to 85 degrees celsius. 

-The fan inside this power supply is made by ADDA.  The model of this is the AD1212MS-A71GL.  It can use a maximum of 0.34 Amps.

Testing:

For this power supply, the test system consists of the following:

-Antec Nine Hundred Case

-AMD Opteron 165 Dual Core Socket 939 CPU @ 2.9 GHz (1.62v)

-ThermalTake Blue Orb II Heat Sink

-DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-D

-2GB of Corsair XMS Platinum PC3200 Memory

-320GB x 2 Western Digital 16MB Cache Hard Drives

-1x nVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS Video Card @ 625MHz Core / 1000 MHz Memory

-Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital Sound Card

-Sony 16x DVD-RAM / 18x Samsung DVD-RAM Drives

-3x 120MM fans, 1x 200mm fan

-2x CCFL Lights

(Multimeter Results)

*Voltages are at 'Max Load', running 3DMark06 CPU Test 1 and 2 / Deep Freeze HDR test, and read with a Multi-Meter.

*For additional / larger pictures of the StealthXStream, Click Here

The results are great for this power supply, the voltages barely shifted.  Everything ran fine during testing; the system was stable and performed the tests as expected.  During the tests, the fan speed did increase.  It increased enough so that I could hear a faint fan motor humming sound over the testing system's fans, but it was not loud enough to be of an annoyance.  Installation of the power supply was easy and there were no issues with the PSU fitting in the case. The lack of SATA connectors could be a problem for computer systems that have more than two SATA devices.  Also, lacking are the PCI-e connectors, where only one 6/8 pin PCI-e connector is offered, so having a multi-gpu system with this power supply is not natively possible.  An 8 Pin EPS CPU power connector is also not part of this power supply, so some dual core / multi-core cpu motherboards might not work with this PSU.  Overall, the OCZ StealthXStream Power Supply is a great performing power supply that offers an 6/8 pin PCI-Express power connector, a quiet cooling fan and a three year warranty for around $80. A Great Value!

Pros +

-Great Power Delivery and Stability

-One 6+2-pin PCI-Express Power Connector

-Fan is quiet

-OCZ 3 Year Warranty

Cons -

-Not enough SATA power connectors

-Not enough PCI-e power connectors

-8 Pin EPS CPU power connector is not included

Techaddicts.net would like to give this power supply a 8 out of 10 rating and the Techaddicts 'Great Value' Award.

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