OCZ MOD XSTREAM 780W Power Supply Unit

As mentioned before the first thing notice on the MOD XTREAM in addition to its modular setup is the 120mm clear fan. The fan speed is thermally controlled and is illuminated by blue LEDs. The LED’s seem to increase the color depending on the fan speed which gives a nice overall look.

Just next to the fan OCZ has put in a few stickers to show off the features the MOD XTREAM offers.

The whole PSU has a black matt finish, so it can blend well with most casings. All the cables are sleeved in a nylon black mesh allowing for better airflow. Going to the back of the PSU, you see a honeycomb designed grill which allow enough airflow to pass-through.

You also have a power switch right next to the power connector.

Moving to the front of the PSU you’re offered with 6 modular connectors. The range of connectors offered by the MOD XTREAM might not suite most of you out there but here’s a breakdown of it once again.

• 2 x SATA connector cables (6 connectors in total)
• 2 x 4-pin peripheral connector cables (4 molex connectors in total and 2 Floppy drive connectors)
• 1 x PCI Express connector cable (This might be a problem if your Graphics card requires 2 power connectors)
• 2 x 4-pin CPU auxiliary connector

So consider wisely if the level of connectivity options offered is adequate for the system you have or plan to setup. For most users out there however the connection options offered would do.

Looking closer at the Molex connectors provided, they have a clip on design making it easier when unplugging the connectors off a device.

The MOD XTREAM offers all new features offered in higher end PSU units such as APFC (Active Power Factor Correction), Overvoltage / Overcurrent / Short-Circuit protection and boasts an efficiency rating of 80%. If you’re looking for more information about these technologies read our review on TAGAN’s 2 Force II 900W Cross Fire certified Power Supply Unit.

The PSU also has four dedicated 12v RAILS with a maximum output current of 20A each. The +3 and +5 RAILS are rated at 30A each with the -12V and +5Vsb rated at 1A and 3A respectively. This level of power would be more than adequate for serious ATI crossfire setups or SLI setups.

Installation

Installation of the unit is quite straight forward. To make things easier for you, start from the larger connectors and work your way downwards as it’ll give you more room to work within confined quarters. OCZ also supplies screws in the same color as the PSU for connecting it to the casing.

Testing

Our testing procedure consisted of first getting voltage readings at system idle and then while on full load. We used a digital multimeter to get all our readings since this is more accurate than any other method to record voltage ratings. Getting readings off software that often come with motherboards will not give you accurate results, so if you plan to test your PSU you’ll need to use a multimeter.

A thing to note is that most of you will never really reach the full power output this PSU provides in real life unless you put it on some electronic load simulator; nevertheless we believe the above rig should be adequate to produce a real life scenario which most of you can relate to.

Max load was obtained by overclocking the system slightly and running benchmark tools such as 3D mark, PRIME and a few games for a couple of hours continuously. So here are the results.

As the results show the MOD XTREAM 780W Power supply performs well within specifications of +/- 3% (It was more like +/- 1V). On full load the system is still very stable and we didn’t have any problems at all even after many hours of stress testing. So it certainly is capable of handling very demanding situations well.

Even on full load the PSU wasn’t too loud for our disliking, so OCZ’s POWER WHISPER technology does seem to be doing its job. And as the above numbers show, the temperature on full load is quite decent.