OCZ 750W Fatal1ty Series PSU Review

👤by David Mitchelson Comments 📅17-09-10
Testing

Our testing methodology for testing Power Supply Units is limited to the multi-meter to show each rails performance due to us not having access to an ATE load tester. We are making plans to invest in equipment as we were directed by Cooler Master when Simon visited their test labs in June 2010.

Although this does constrain us slightly we can still monitor fluctuations on the rails and give the unit a good assessment when we feature it in one of our builds. The way the testing will run is simple, voltages will be observed at idle wattage and then a single GPU will be installed within the system and a combination of OCCT and MSI Kombustor will be executed to provide simulation with just 1 GPU. This will be run for 10 minutes. After this another graphics card will be added to the system giving the setup a dual GPU configuration and again the stress tests will be applied and after 10 minutes voltages monitored. This should give us a good indication of how the Fatal1ty 750W will perform under gaming stresses and beyond. This is a severe load test indeed and a good representation of real-world analysis.



System Components
CPU AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8GHz
Motherboard ASUS M4A89TD PRO (890FX)
Graphics 2 x ATI HD5870
Memory 4GB Mushkin EM3-10666 DDR3
HDD 1 x Samsung Spinpoint 500GB SATA-II
PSU OCZ Fatal1ty 750W

I deliberately configured Crossfire within this test system to give the PSU as much of a draw as it could take. As I mentioned there is no ATE load tester available so generating as much power as possible is key to observing the fluctuations on the rails.

For voltage tolerance levels, ATX specify that a 5% variable fluctuation is acceptable. (Form Factors - ATX Specification PDF - Page 10). So what this means is:

3.3V Rail - 3.135V - 3.465V acceptable
5V Rail - 4.75V – 5.25V acceptable
12V Rail - 11.4V – 12.6V acceptable



Idle test - The system settles in windows without any applications or stressing. 1 GPU (142W)
Single GPU - OCCT/MSI Kombustor run for 10 minutes (330W)
Dual GPU - Crossfire is setup for 2 x HD5870. OCCT/MSI Kombustor run for 10 minutes (537W)

Firstly, its good to see that all the voltages are within the ATX standards for tolerance levels - being within 5%. The 3.3V rail typically used for low powered peripherals did not sustain any significant voltage fluctuation at all. Just 0.03v difference with 2 GPUs loaded plus the system. The 5V rail similarly had very little oscillation. This stayed within 0.04v. The one we really want to pay attention to is the 12V rail. This is the rail that provides the juice for the graphics card and needs to be able to sustain plenty of voltage load not just for one GPU but for two. Although there is a significant difference between the results on the other rails, there is nothing to be concerned with. It's to be expected, MSI Kombustor is a comprehensive and thorough stress testing tool and puts enormous pressure on the GPU's. The results are pleasing - just 0.10v difference between idle and using just the 1 GPU and then with 2 GPUs being fully loaded we have 0.12v difference between idle.

These results clearly show that sustained stressing on the PSU causes very little fluctuations and the consumer can rest assured there will be no sporadic performance hits. We have a reliable PSU in the Fatal1ty 750W. During the tests, the fan did obviously ramp up as it was forced to change due to temperatures and stressing. The noise is barely audible coming from the 135mm LED fan, even after a prolonged period.


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