With the high power demands required by computer enthusiasts, both gamers and overclockers, the rush to meet those demands seems to be a never ending quest for those that manufacture power supplies. OCZ’s latest attempt at satisfying this segment of the market is their new ZX series of power supply units. Today we will be taking a quick test drive of the 1250 Watt version. We will take a few voltage readings, run a few benchmark programs and see how well it performs under an overclocked environment.

About OCZ

“OCZ Technology was founded by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts, and our commitment to that end-user group has not digressed. Entering the memory market in 2002, OCZ was built around the determination to manufacture the very best high-speed memory for overclockers. In this pursuit, OCZ became the first manufacturer to make dual channel optimized memory kits available to the public, which originally took advantage of NVIDIA’s Twinbank, or Dual DDR architecture, found in their nForce chipset. Over the last decade, we have maintained that thirst for innovation and performance leadership in multiple categories including power management and solid state storage.

Today, OCZ, a member of JEDEC, is a leader in the design and manufacture of SSDs for both the consumer and enterprise markets and continues to be a front-runner in the memory industry, offering high-performance DDR3 modules for the latest platforms. OCZ was the first to release DDR3 Intel Extreme Memory for the X38/48 Chipset, along with other high-compatibility and high-speed modules that were some of the fastest on the market. By breaking speed barriers and maintaining a reputation of quality, OCZ is a name enthusiasts have turned to time and time again for cutting-edge memory solutions.

In addition to memory, OCZ transformed the enthusiast and gaming power supply market, designing a high performance line of power supply units (PSUs) over the course of the last 5 years that achieved hundreds of accolades from top industry press. PSUs have become a significant hub of innovation and milestones for OCZ. Most notably, our new Z-Series was the first 80 Plus Gold certified PSU to hit the market.

In 2007, PC Power & Cooling was brought into the OCZ Technology Group, forming a well-rounded, highly innovative organization that placed the company at the forefront of enthusiast and industrial grade power management. PC Power has produced many pioneering products including the first CPU cooler, the first PC heat alarm, the first independently-regulated PC power supply, the first redundant power system, the first NVIDIA certified SLI supply, the first One Kilowatt computer power supply, and the first power supply with its own certified test report.”

The OCZ ZX 1250 Watt PSU comes boxed displaying a black and gold/green theme, perhaps in reference to the 80 Plus Gold rating of the unit. The front of the box makes reference to a few features such as silent operation, being multi-GPU ready, having active PFC circuitry and superior cooling through the use of a 140mm fan. Also viewable here is the 80 Plus Gold logo and an emblem boasting the 5 year warranty.

The top of the box has a nifty handle for carrying purposes and provides additional information on the cable connectors included as well as a brief specification list, more on this later in the review.

The back of the box is pretty much a repeat of the box front and top. There is additional information on the warranty and the compact power feature which according to OCZ, their “elite engineering” allows for the massive power of this ZX 1250 watt PSU to be fit in to a smaller housing and thus resulting in a smaller footprint.

The two box sides simply have additional branding and logos.

Let’s move on and see what is included as far as cables and accessories go. Once the box top is lifted you are greeted with a cardboard insert with some branding and a plastic clear window on it. Removing the insert gives way to an accessory box and the power supply itself securely nestled within foam blocks.

Diving deeper into the accessory box is where you will find a nylon bag stuffed with all the different cable leads, and I mean STUFFED, there is a more than adequate supply of cable options packaged with the ZX 1250 Watt PSU. There is a smaller box located in the accessory pack which houses the power cords, a few Velcro tie straps and four thumb screws for mounting purposes.

Rounding out the box contents is the 80 Plus Gold Certificate and the users manual.

First let’s do a little copy/paste from OCZ’s web site so you can see what they say about their own ZX 1250 Watt Power Supply:

The Company Line

“Max-Performance PSU / 1250W / 80+ Gold / Triple VGA-Ready / Fully Modular / Single +12V Rail

The ZX Series is the unsurpassed solution for driving today’s Enthusiast and gaming systems. It has the ability to easily power both NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFire modes, supporting even the most power hungry GPUs with up to triple GPU configurations. Industrial-grade yet designed with enthusiasts, gamers and modders in mind, this PSU is stable, robust, and sports a sleek look and the most compact form factor of its class.

Kept ultra-cool with a load-controlled ultra quiet 140mm fan, the ZX Series was engineered to be the quietest PSU available and eliminate distracting noises from your PC. Highly efficient, featuring up to 92% efficiency at typical load and up to 89% at full load, this leading-edge power supply remains rock solid and powerful while retaining superior efficiency under load. The OCZ ZX Series provides universal Input and Active PFC (Power Factor Correction) to effectively regulate input voltage across worldwide power grids and maintain an economical, stable supply of power.

Backed with OCZ’s 5-year “PowerSwap” warranty, the OCZ ZX Series PSU gives you the ultimate power and peace of mind to ensure the stability, low noise, optimized air flow, and efficiency of your gaming system.”

You would expect the features and specifications of a power supply this robust to be quite expansive, and it is indeed! Some of the highlights are the 5 year PowerSwap warranty, and the whopping 104 amps on the single +12v rail!

Features

• 1250W Continous Power
• OCZ PowerWhisper Technology
• Ultra Quiet 140mm Ball-Bearing Fan
• SLI and CrossFire Support
• Fully Modular Cable Management System
• 5 Year Warranty Backed By OCZ’s Exclusive PowerSwap Replacement Program, No More Endless Return-For-Repair Loops!

Specifications

** Note: Not all can be connected simultaneously

Continuing on with a closer look at the OCZ ZX 1250 Watt Power Supply, we turn our attention to the modular cables. As previously mentioned, the ZX1250W is completely modular. This gives the user total control over what cables they want to use as the system is being assembled, albeit regardless of what you are building a couple cables will have to be used, such as the main 20+4 and at least one 4 or 8 pin CPU power lead. All of the cables are sleeved and have the appropriate heat-shrink tubing applied to both ends. The main ATX cable, the PCI-e cables and the EPS CPU power cables all use 16AWG wires which is nice to see. The rest of the cables use 18AWG wiring which is the ATX recommended wire size.

The main ATX power lead is comprised of a 20+4 design making it usable on older motherboards that have a 20 pin connector. While the 20 pin motherboard connector is rapidly going the way of the dinosaur, it doesn’t hurt to have options!

Both of the 8-pin CPU power leads feature the 4+4 pin design but are easily joined to make a solid feeling 8-pin connector.

There are a total of six PCI-e graphics card power leads, all of which employ the 6+2 connection design. Even if you are running a Tri-SLI/Crossfire setup with each graphics card requiring two power leads, you will have enough PCI-e leads to get the job done.

Rounding out the included modular cables is four SATA cabes and three 4-pin Molex cables. The SATA cables have three power connectors provided per cable, making possible the use of up to twelve SATA devices. The three 4-pin Molex cables feature three power connectors per cable and one of the cables has an additional FDD type lower connector. It is worth noting that there are five cable connection points available on the power supply for the SATA/4-pin Molex cables, but seven cables are included with the unit. Obviously not all of the cables can be used at the same time.

Installing a cable to the connection point on power supply is a very simple process, just slide the cable end into the corresponding port until the locking clip snaps into place. The cables feel very secure and solid once installed to the unit giving the user confidence the cables will stay put.

Next we’ll have a look at the exterior area of the OCZ ZX 1250W Power Supply. The black matte finish applied to the unit is very appealing to the eye, and the branding and gold colors go well together. The top of the unit has a large white and black label affixed with some branding and rail amperage information. Both sides of the power supply have the same branding and gold color theme applied. The bottom of the ZX 1250W is where the 140mm fan is located and it is covered with a black metal grill guard. The back of the unit is made of a large mesh area and is where you will find the on/off rocker switch and power cord connection point. The front area is where all the connection points for the different modular cables are located.

Opening the the ZX 1250W Psu is accomplished by removing the four screws that attach the cover. Once the screws are removed the cover lifts right off. The first thing we noticed was the inclusion of Yate Loon D14BH-12 fan, which has a RPM of 2800, and pushes 140 CFM with a 48.5 dB rating. Nice to see such a quality fan being used here.

In the first picture below you can get a good look at all the solder points which were very sturdy and tidy.In the second picture you can get a look at the two DC to DC converter modules, these modules are what take the +12v current and generate the minor rail currents (+5v and +3.3v). The last two pictures below give you an idea of the heatsinks used and amount of room between components, which is surprisingly ample given the small standard ATX size of the power supply as a whole. The air flow of the ZX 1250W should be more than adequate to keep the unit cool.

You are probably wondering what kind of capacitors are used in the ZX 1205w PSU. We looked for Japanese capacitors but were unable to locate any, even in the area of the APFC where most manufacturers that claim the usage of Japanese capacitors put them. What we did find was predominate usage of Teapo capacitors, which are not Japanese capacitors but are considered to be reliable and quality capacitors in their own right.

One troubling aspect to the +12v current as it leaves the secondary side of the main PCB, we did not seem to find any shunt resistors present. This would indicate that there may not be any over current protection which contradicts OCZ’s specifications of this power supply. In a single +12V rail combined a with 1250W capacity, OCP is not even really needed. When a PSU can put out the kind of amps this unit can (100+) , a faulty component that wants to start pulling say 50 amps would probably start to burn up before OCP even kicks in, because even with a demanding 50+ amp load on the +12v you’re not even close to where OCP would kick in.

Initial test was done with a digital volt meter by simply reading the +12v and +5v in a no load condition. We used the old paper clip trick to jumper the green and a black ground wire on the main harness to fire up the power supply and take some basic readings. In this no load condition the +12V reading was 12.23v and the +5v was 5.10v. It’s a good idea to run this simple little test before installing any new power supply into a system. First it will tell you simply if the unit will turn on and has not arrived DOA, and secondly if there is a problem with the voltage levels being to low from the start. We seem to be off to a good start here with the strong readings obtained in this no load condition. No doubt when the system is put under a load these values will drop some, but there appears to be plenty of room to work here.

We installed the OCZ ZX 1250W Power Supply into a system consisting of the following components:

eVGA X58 Classified NF200 (E759)
3X2gb G.Skill DDR3 2000
i7 920
2x eVGA GTX260 video cards in SLI
DVD Rom Drive
4x IDE hard drives
Water Cooling W/MCP355 Pump and 6 additional fans

We set the CPU to a 4.0 overclock and took an initial set of readings while the system was idle. We then started up the LinX stress test and took another set of voltage readings over a 30 minute period noting the high and low values. Once that was complete we fired up the Future Mark Vantage benchmark and noted the high and low values during the benchmark. Here are the results:

As you can see by the results all voltages held very strong during the benchmark runs. Stable voltages are key to a system performing well under demanding situations and the OCZ held up it’s end of the bargain against everything we threw at it.

The OCZ ZX 1250W Power Supply is one of the least expensive units in it’s category, but don’t let that scare you off. The ZX 1250W is packed with features and quality components throughout. The voltage rails held strong under high load conditions and was kept cool by the Yate Loon 140mm fan. The 104 amp single +12v rail is extremely stout by anyone’s definition and this bodes well for extreme SLI/Crossfire configurations.

Pros
Sharp Looks/Matte Finish
Price Performance Ratio
Strong and Stable Voltage Readings
Fully Modular
Ample Modular Cables Included
104 Amp Single +12v Rail

Cons
Missing Shunt Resistors, possible lack of over current protection

If you are in the market for a high powered PSU to fuel today’s demanding graphics cards and want exceptional value for your money, you need to keep the OCZ ZX 1250W on your short list. The fully modular cable management design is a pleasure to work with and will make any system build look very clean when finished. OverclockersTech is proud to give the OCZ ZX a 9/10 rating and the accompanying gold award!

Dino DeCesari (Lvcoyote)

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