Strengths:Very quiet and very powerful, SLI ready, quad +12v rails, all black cable sheathing with quick connects, adjustable rails, fully ATX 2.2 compliant and three year warranty
Weaknesses:Two or three more molex connectors would be nice, Some may not like the blue LEDs on the 120mm fan (matter of personal taste), slightly out of spec on the 12 volt rails in some tests
Posted Jan 6, 2008 - (Jan 6th, 2008) As everyone knows, new tech items are constantly being released and I am now recommending the Thermaltake 1000, 1200 or 1500 watt models instead of the GamerXStream 700. I will not be updating this review any longer.
(Written Sept 9th,2007) I have been using the OCZ GamerXStream 700 watt power supply, which was released in May of 2006, for almost a year now and everything is still running dandy. True to its name, you get 700 watts at 50 degrees C (which is damn excellent). This is distributed over four +12 volt rails (which means you do not run into the power failures common in ATX 2.0 (pre 2005) power supplies)of 18 amps each. To its great credit, the GamerXStream 700 is cooled by one large 120mm fan mounted in the top (and not with a 80mm fan on the rear like so many PSUs where the noise is then quite noticeable), and this allows for almost silent operation when inside the case (less than 30 dBa usually). The outside finish is a flat black matte that shows no fingerprints and all the cables are sheathed in black mesh with the wonderful quick connects (no more cussing and yanking on the molex connectors) to aid in case appearance and maintenance. You also get six 4 pin molex, one 24 pin motherboard, one 4/8 pin auxillary motheboard, 6 SATA, 2 floppy and most importantly two PCI Express video card power connectors (this allows you to run SLI (two video graphics cards that work in tandem)). The GamerXStream 700 will easily power an SLI motherboard, Core 2 Duo or AMD FX-62 dual core, 4 hard drives, two optical DVD burners, X-Fi sound card, front fan controllers, two Nvidia 8000 series graphics cards and a water cooling pump. I do not recommend this model however, if you plan to run Quad SLI (for that you need around 750~800 watts or more to be on the safe side). And if anything ever gives out you have the three year no questions asked warranty of OCZ to back you up.
After researching the PC Power and Cooling SLI 510, 750 Silencer 850 and 1000 watt, Enermax 850 and 1000 watt Galaxy DXX, Thermaltake Purepower 680 and Toughpower 750/850/1000 and 1200 watt, Seasonic 600 and 700 watt, Silverstone 750, 850 and 1000 watt and Antec TruePower 650 models, it is clear that the OCZ GamerXStream 700 watt represents itself very well, especially when price is factored in. If want the absolute best at the moment, then head for the Thermaltake Toughpower 1200 watt. If you are not going to run SLI graphics but are still a power user or enjoy really quiet computing, then look at the Seasonic 600 or Corsair 650. If you have a nice rig now, enjoy quiet conditions and plan on adding lots of stuff in the future then consider the GamerXStream 700 or the Thermaltake Toughpower 850, 1000 or 1200 watt models. All are five star winners. The Thermaltake models are slightly more powerful and feature a silent 140mm fan (with annoying plastic insert) while the GamerXStream 700 is slightly smaller in size and less expensive. You may also check out the relatively new GameXStream 1010 watt model as well, which is the same physical size (with all the same good features of the 700 watt).
I was reticent to purchase from OCZ because in the past they have primarily been noted for their excellent memory modules. However, within the last few years, they have begun to offer several different high quality power supplies that have all been highly rated for their respective power class. If you are a power user or want to run an SLI setup then this is the fusion reactor you need, period.
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Great PSU!!!
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very powerful power supply
OCZ 700W PSU
