Vertigo Acid
2(-log[H+])4u
- Joined
- May 31, 2003
- Messages
- 12,410
So, I was at a 4-day LAN party all weekend, just got back, had a blast. Had a pretty interesting and outright disturbing encounter with OCZ, who was a sponsor. I went over and hung out with one of their people for an hour or so and talked power supplies and RAM, seemed like a very knowledgable guy. He even gave me a pair of "OCZ Enhanced VGA & HDD Power Lead OCZ Enhanced VGA & HDD Power Leads". I was getting much more confident in OCZ, well that was until the next day; OCZ was presenting some info, and I do quote "OCZ rates their power supplies at 40 Degrees, unlike any other PSU company in the world"
I had to bite my tounge to stop myself from yelling PCP&C at the top of my lungs. Everyone here knows the both the Vantec Stealths and the OCZ Powerstreams are the same supplies; Same OEM, exact same specs, etc. with the exception of a few OCZ extras like adjustable rails. But Vantec rates at 25 degrees. I asked one of the reps about it, who replied that the OEM manufactures to their specs. When confronted with the info about Topower being the OEM and them being exactly the same as the Vantec Stealth, he tried to play it off that Vantec rates at 40 degrees as well, and so then I went and got the manual to my supply
Couldn't find him after that. Ridiculous. Just when you think a company is getting good and cleaning itself up, it begins to abuse a new market, one in which most people aren't very knowledgable. In addition to that, the supply doesn't even list max combined 5v+3.3v. Oh, and those power leads? They make some funny claims as well "+5v and +12v improved from 40.8mV to 21.6mV" "Extreme curent stabilization for leading edge gaming and high resolution applications." "Elmitnames snowking and water wave effects when plugging into high end VGA cards and Hard Disk Drives" Sounds cool, eh? Well I cut one open: They contain a standard looking torroid, following by two pair of capacitors. 2x 25v,10microfarad electrolytics, and 2x very small ceramics. I'm not an EE, but something tells me those aren't big enough to do jack shit when it comes to fluctuations on the rails, nor will a simple torroid cut the ripple voltage in half. I'm going to contact Mike at SPCR and if he's willing send him these to test on a scope. We'll see how much real world difference these make. If anyone is interested, i'll also post pics later. Sorry for the long, ranting post but I had to blow of some steam after that :|