OCZ Technology 600W EvoStream Modular SLI Power Supply
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Internal Examination:
Opening the unit (which will void any warranty) you will find that the internal components are not in the common layout. Instead the first thing that caught my eye was a huge copper heatsink, which I quickly realized was just a copper plate, held onto the main heatsink by two screws. The next thing that I noticed was two potentiometers which can be used to adjust the voltage going to your equipment. These have been sealed with some epoxy, but it might be possible to remove the epoxy so you can use them (which you can do at your own risk).
Turning the unit to one of the sides you will find what makes this power supply a little unique. It is using multiple dual sided PCBs. I have only seen this design in high wattage power supplies, and it is intended to save space. On this side you can see a small PCB which I assume controls the Active PFC. On the bottom portion you can see one of the transformers, several capacitors, and various other features. On the other side you will find several more components that are placed right in front of the fan, which should help to keep them cool.
Installation:
If you have ever installed a power supply before, you should not have any issues installing the OCZ Technology 600W EvoStream Modular SLI Power Supply. Personally, I felt this power supply went in upside down because the OCZ logo on the fan grill was upside down. I tried to turn the unit over, however the holes did not line up, but you could remove the fan grill and flip it if you really wanted to. This is not a big deal, and will not be held against OCZ.
I did notice a few things that caught my attention during installation. The first is the length of the cables. Many of them I found to be a little shorter than I needed. For example, the motherboard auxiliary power cable barely reached the connection on my motherboard. The SATA and Molex cables had a similar issue in reaching the bottom of my case to plug into my hard drives. As it is I barely had enough cable to route the SATA cable and use the end connector for my SATA hard drive about 3/4 to the bottom of the case.
The second issue I had was with routing the cables, as they are a little stiff and do not route as easily as mesh wrapped cables like those found on the OCZ GameXStream power supply.
While I had an issue with the length of the cables, I should also point out that I am installing this in a Thermaltake Eureka case, which is designed to be a full tower home server case, and can hold extended ATX motherboards. If you were to install the EvoStream into a mid-tower case, I do not believe you will have the issue I had with the length of the cables.
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