OCZ's EliteXStream 800W
PCP with a twist of OCZ

OCZ purchased PC Power & Cooling a little more than a year ago, and the new EliteXStream 800W looks to have benefited greatly from that acquisition. This is the first OCZ power supply we've seen that has unmistakable PC Power & Cooling DNA—a single, massive 12V rail that in this case has a monstrous 744W output capacity. The EliteXStream clearly means business, then, and the 800W unit we're looking at today is actually the baby of the line. OCZ also makes a kilowatt EliteXStream unit should your wattage requirements exceed a mere 800W.

PC Power & Cooling's influence can clearly be seen in the EliteXStream's design, but the boutique PSU maker's notoriously high prices aren't as evident. You can pick up an EliteXStream for as little as $150 online, which is actually less than you'll pay for the other 800W PSUs in this round-up.

Not content to let its latest acquisition influence only the guts of the EliteXStream, OCZ appears to have let PC Power & Cooling take care of the decorating, too. The unit is surprisingly restrained considering OCZ's penchant for bling. Only green LED lighting breaks up what otherwise is an all-black affair. I do quite like the stealthy look, especially since there are no polished surfaces to attract fingerprints.

For all its PC Power & Cooling influence, the EliteXStream doesn't rely on a rear-mounted 80mm cooling fan. Instead, OCZ joins the new millennium with a much larger 120mm fan mounted at the bottom while a drilled-out panel allows for airflow through the rear.

OCZ eschews the modular approach for the EliteXStream, instead tying the unit to a massive bundle of extremely long cables. The cables are sheathed, too, although only up to the first connector on each line.

The EliteXStream's 3.3 and 5V lines are practically bang-on target across the board, but the 12V rails stray at both extremes of our load testing. Don't worry about those extremes, though. At its worst, the EliteXStream's 12V rail is still less than 3% off the mark.

It's hard to get down on such a small DC voltage deviation when the EliteXStream's AC ripple results look so good. Sure, we've seen other PSUs register lower ripple values here and there, but few can match the EliteXStream's consistently low ripple content on each rail across all loads.

True to its 80 Plus rating, the EliteXStream delivers better than 80% efficiency in each of our load tests. In fact, efficiency never dips below 82%.