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Installing the OCZ GameXStream is quite simple. We tossed the PSU into a Thermaltake Eureka Aluminum Home Server Case, and it fit like a glove. The upper cross rails held the PSU in place while it was screwed down. The big 120mm fan also gave opportunity the help exhaust the hot air being cooked off by the CPU and GPU(s) right below. Smaller cases will house this 700W beast well. The size is standard, but there are a few larger supplies out there.

A small package with a lot of punch. One thing that has changed slightly though are the attached power connectors. First off, the 20/4 ATX power connector might confuse some at first. You'll probably spend a minute comparing the motherboard receptacle and power plug, trying to find the plugs that mate. Very simply though, the small 4 pin goes down at the left end to find pins 11,12,23 and 24. Then the 20 pin connector fills in the blanks. There is a picture in the included manual.

All of the other connectors are standard fare. All the SATA, PCI-E, CPU and floppy plugs are pretty straight forward and haven't really changed at all. The Molex plugs however, they have been equipped with squeeze tabs. This little change is something a lot of manufacturers are doing and it's nice to see. On the ends of each 4 pin Molex connector are these two plastic flex tabs. Insert a Molex plug just as you normally would, but don't yank it out when your done. Squeeze down on these two arched tabs and they'll start to push the Molex connector out. It saves a lot of aggravation, and your fingers.

Under the hood of this PSU, there is a very clean layout. The circuitry in well designed and well manufactured. There is a absolute minimal of loose wiring and clutter, helping with airflow and reducing electrical resistance. Now, if you look at the above picture you will notice two gray plates that stand on end. These are two Aluminum heat sinks for the SCRs. SCRs do get hot and these two Aluminum plates are meant to help cool them down a bit, but unfortunately, they come off pretty cheap. One of them is just a stamped Aluminum plate that has only moderate cooling capabilities. The other does have some cooling fins on it, but too few to make any real difference. Attention to detail everywhere, except with a couple of heat sinks. It looks like it's about time to fire up the OCZ GameXStream give it a little a test. Here's the system we used.

• ECS KN1 SLI Extreme motherboard
• AMD Athlon 64 3700+ processor
• BFG GeForce 7900 GTX OC SLI 16x PCI-E graphics card
• 2x1024MB OCZ EB PC4000 Platinum Edition memory (3-3-2-8)
• Western Digital WD1200 SATA hard drive
• Samsung SH-W162 DVD±R/RW optical drive
• Windows XP Professional SP2

Voltage Testing

Our test rig skipped along cheerfully at idle. Then, we ran two instances of CPU burn-in to tax the processor a little. Finally, we ran at fully load with one instance of CPU burn-in and the Doom3 benchmarking demo to really get things cooking. Here's the numbers we pulled from our voltmeter.

This power supply hardly broke a sweat. The widest variations were in the +12v rail during full load. Aside from that, the figures aren't bad at all. Now for the sound testing.

Sound Measurements

We compared the audible noise of the GameXStream against a few previously tested power supplies. The results are pretty impressive.

The OCZ GameXStream is barely a whisper when tested outside a case. Inside a case, you'll probably never hear from it ever again. If you haven't already started to look at noise levels in a PSU as a problem, the time is right. A quiet PSU might not be of great concern to some people, but it is one less part in your system contributing to the overall noise level. If you have really sensitive ears, then perhaps the AeroCool Zero dba 620W is for you. You won't even know if that particular supply is running unless you look to see if the fan is spinning.