PSUs
Modern PCs require much more power than they did a few years ago, which means that the PSU is now one of its most important components. That's why we've put 29 commonly available PSUs to the test to see which one really deserves to power your PC.
OCZ Power Stream OCZ600 ADJ-EU

| Manufacturer: | Price: |
| OCZ Technology | £152.48 inc VAT |
| Reviewer: | Review Date: |
| James Gorbold | Oct 2005 |
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Verdict: Smells bad, and is incapable of outputting its rated power
OCZ is very well known in the enthusiast community for its extremely overclockable, if a little expensive, RAM, but it also makes PSUs.
This model is rated at 600W, which is split into a 28A 3.3V rail, 46A 5V rail and two 12V rails, rated at 20A for 12V1 and 18A for 12V2. Plenty of connectors are provided, including support for 20- and 24-pin motherboards, There's also an 8-pin EPS12V connector for dual-core CPU and dual-CPU motherboards. There's only one PCI-E connector, although there are seven Molex, one FDD and two S-ATA plugs.
The OCZ is cooled by two temperature-controlled 80mm fans. Its only unique feature is the ability to manually adjust the output voltage of the four primary rails, but this strikes us as extremely foolhardy.
The OCZ has poor efficiency, averaging just 71 per cent at full load. This means it had to draw a ridiculous 845W from the mains to produce 600W. Even more worrying is the very unpleasant smell it emits at full load, and after just 16 minutes it overheated, shut down and wouldn't switch on again.
Not only is the OCZ incapable of producing its claimed 600W, but it's also inefficient.