OCZ ZX Series 1250W Power Supply

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Slaymate

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OCZ ZX Series 1250W Power Supply
By: Dan Durland

Introduction

Today we have another product from OCZ Technology to evaluate. OCZ first made their mark on the enthusiast community with their Hi-Speed Memory products and more recently with their mainstream Solid State Drives. In the time between the memory and SSD products, OCZ expanded into the power supply market, culminating in the ZX Series 1250W power supply I have before me now.

OCZ Technology said:
Max-Performance PSU / 1250W / 80+ Gold / Multi 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 SLIâ„¢ and ATI CrossFireâ„¢ modes, supporting even the most power hungry GPUs with 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 “power swap” 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.

Features
  • 1250W Continuous Power
  • OCZ PowerWhisperâ„¢ Technology
  • Ultra quiet 140mm ball-bearing fan
  • SLIâ„¢ and Crossfireâ„¢ support
  • Fully modular cable management system
  • 5 year warranty backed by OCZ's exclusive PowerSwapâ„¢ replacement program.

Specifications
  • 150 x 175 x 86mm (W x L x H)
  • ATX12V v2.2 and EPS 12V
  • 80-Plus Gold Certified
  • 92% Efficiency (Typical Load)
  • Overvoltage/Overcurrent/Short-Circuit protection
  • Active PFC
  • MTBF: 100,000 hours

zx1250-1.jpg

Connectors
  • 20+4 pin ATX
  • Dual 4+4 pin CPU
  • 6x PCIe 6+2 pin
  • 12x SATA*
  • 9x Molex*
  • 1x Floppy

    *note: not all connectors can be connected simultaneously

Image Gallery

The OCZ ZX Series 1250W Power Supply is packaged in a 13.75" x 5.75" x 9.5" (L x H x W) box with the Features, Specifications, Outputs and Marketing Photos clearly visible.





Opening the box we see the ZX 1250W encased in protective foam, with only the fan exposed, and another box (9.25" x 5.25" x 5.25"). Inside this second box we find yet another box, containing the power cord, (4)-case screws, the users manual an 80 Plus Gold certificate, an black nylon bag containing the modular cables.





In our next four pictures we have the modular cables. In the first we have the 20+4 pin ATX and two 4+4 pin CPU cables. The second picture shows the six PCIe 6+2 pin cables. The third picture shows the four SATA cables, each cable has 3 connectors. And the last picture shows the three 12v molex cables, each cable has 3 connectors.





In our next two pictures we can see the top and bottom of the ZX 1250W. The first picture gives us a view of the fan while the second picture shows the voltage outputs.



The sides of the ZX 1250W are identical.



The last two pictures of the exterior show us the front view with the modular cable connection points and the meshed grilled rear view with the On-Off switch and power input receptacle.



Removing the cover to access the interior of the ZX 1250W we can see the cooling fan is a D14BH-12 manufactured by Yate Loon. The D14BH-12 is a 140 x 140 x 25 mm, seven bladed 12vdc fan rated for 140 cfm at 48.5 dB.



The next six pictures show us the interior of the ZX 1250W in all of its glory. The first thing that caught my attention was how uncluttered the interior is. The modular design eliminates the vast majority of wires that are normally packed into the enclosure. The next thing that caught my attention were the relatively small heatsinks used. During testing, the fan and clean interior design provided enough ventilation to keep the ZX 1250W cool, so the heatsink designs appear to be appropriate. The last thing I noticed were the two large Teapo capacitors that provide the 104 amps to the 12v rail. Each capacitor is rated at 390uF / 420v.





The last two pictures show the ZX 1250W installed in my computer waiting for power to be applied.



Test System Specifications
  • Intel i7 2600K @ 5 GHz - 175W
  • Noctua NH-D14 with (2) Silverstone FM-121 fans - 9.6W
  • Asus P8P67 Pro
  • Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 8GB (2x4GB) - 30W
  • EVGA GTX 480 SLI (800/1600/2000) - 500W
  • (2) Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme Plus - 9.36W
  • Lian-Li PC-A70B Custom
    • (5) 120mm Lian-Li fans - 17.4W
    • (6) 120mm Yate Loon fans - 21.6W
  • OCZ Agility 2 60GB - 2W
  • OCZ Agility 120GB - 2W
  • OCZ Vertex 30GB - 2W
  • Seagate 250GB - 9W
  • EVGA Power Boost
  • OCZ ZX Series 1250W - 8W

Reviewing my system specifications above you'll see that I added a watt value to most of the components. These are approximate values I calculated from the manufacturers listed specifications. Adding up the values we get 782.96 watts and my Kill-A-Watt meter registered a maximum watt reading of 764 which is pretty close considering the drives are idling during most of the testing.

Additional Components Used
  • Thermalright True Copper
  • (2) Delta 120x25mm FFB1212EH 150 cfm fans - 34.8W
  • 245W Peltier (24A @ 15.2V) - 230W

A system thats only using 764 watts under full load is hardly enough to test a 1250 watt power supply so I assembled the additional components above to increase the load. Once assembled I connected my additional load (264.8W) to the system; it's not actually cooling anything, but it increased my total wattage under full load to 1015 watts.

Voltage Testing

Unlike some of the larger review sites, Tech-Forums doesn't have thousands of dollars to spend on a specialized power supply tester so I'll be using the old style method, a digital multimeter. The voltage readings will be taken under the following Load Conditions:
  • Bare - Power Supply is not connected to any load.
  • Idle - The Power Supply is powering the system at an idle.
  • Video - Furmark Burn-In test is running
  • CPU - LinX CPU test is running
  • Combined - Furmark and LinX are both running.

If we look back to the ZX Series 1250W specifications we see the power supply is outputting +3.3v, +5v, +12v but it is also outputting -12v and +5vsb. If we look at the specifications a little closer we see the -12v is rated at .6A and the +5vsb is rated at 3A. The -12v is only used for minor circuitry (serial ports) that require very little power and its output is not affected by the testing. The +5vsb is the Stand-By Voltage. When your computer is turned off, but plugged into a 110v receptacle, you may see a few lights on the motherboard. This is the +5vsb. When you finally press the power switch, guess what voltage is being used? The +5vsb. The +5vsb is not affected by the testing.

zx1250-voltage.jpg


Looking at the graph above we can see that the OCZ ZX Series 1250W voltages stays well within the voltage requirements.

80 Plus Gold Cerification

The OCZ ZX Series 1250W power supply is a 80 Plus Gold certified power supply. Regrettably I have no way to test this but it has been tested and verified by the 80 Plus organization. In order to achieve a 80 Plus Gold rating the power supply must meet the following efficiency requirements.

cert-requirements.jpg


And here are the detailed results of the OCZ ZX Series 1250W 80 Plus Certification testing (click the image for a larger view).



Conclusion

Pro's
  • Price
  • 80 Plus Gold
  • Fully Modular
  • 104 Amp Single 12v Rail
  • Silent Operation
  • 5 Year Warranty
Con's
  • None

The OCZ ZX Series 1250W is priced at $239.99 US which is the lowest priced 1250W 80 Plus power supply I could find. In fact, it is priced lower than most of the 1200W power supplies available. And many of those power supplies are lacking 80 Plus Certification, much less achieving Gold status. Plus the 5-year warranty is a feature you will only find on other Top-Tier power supply units.

The OCZ ZX Series 1250W is not only powerful, with a single 104 Amp +12v rail, but it is also extremely quiet. My dBa meter registered no change in the sound level what so ever.

It looks great, it performs great, it's quiet, I have absolutely no complaints whatsoever. I would like to thank OCZ Technology for allowing me to review this excellent product and I'm awarding the OCZ ZX Series 1250W power supply 5 Stars.

5star.gif


 
Wow, **** nice PSU, overkill for most anyone, but very nice, if I had the money, I would buy it just because of the sexy 12v rail. Though, how much current was it pulling during your tests? I didn't notice any numbers on that other than on the lables.
 
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