Years ago, we learned not to buy no-name PSU’s. They’d die during the summer.

Since then, I’ve read reviews, done research, and attempted to go with good solid name brands. Things have gone much better since then.

Well… until this thing came along.

This PSU is going on a field trip! To the dump!

It was bought years ago to run a system. The system needed about 300-400W worth of power. The 600SXS was bought because it was a 600 watt power supply and… well extra headroom is good!

Surprisingly, one day while the system was running, the thing just powered off. After waiting a short time, I started up the computer again, and not long after it cut out again. Fortunately, I had my 400W Fortron Sparkle PSU sitting around, which worked as a replacement. That’s right. FSP. Fortron Sparkle. The ugly low-cost power supplies that happen to be decent. They beat this thing with their 400W model.

Much later on, I was putting together a system for a writeup here, and tried to give the OCZ another chance. The system used under 200W at load (measured from the wall), plus an ATI HD 4850 video card (which is probably in the neighborhood of 150-200W. The power supply died out again, but this time for good. It wasn’t running games, or even stress testing at the time, it was booting Windows. So maybe 250W power draw coming from the system total.

I’ll note that all my Antec PSU’s and Sparkle/Fortron PSU’s have handled loads well beyond what this thing was ever subjected too, even when they’ve been rated lower (400W/500W levels)

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Pros:

• It was pretty quiet when it worked.
• It shut off safely when cutting out (some no name PSUs will just keep going and start blowing caps until it shorts out or fries your motherboard). This is actually really important – while I’m unhappy the thing died, I’m very pleased it shut off rather than destroying my expensive hardware so I’ll put some gold stars here. —> *****
• I was able to salvage the 12cm fan before throwing it in the trash.

Cons:

• Only lasted a couple months.
• Didn’t handle anywhere close to the max load.

Conclusion:

This thing is not worth buying. To be fair, our house gets pretty hot in the summer, although all the other PSU’s have handled the heat just fine. Fortunately, NCIX doesn’t sell it anymore. There’s a new “version 2” they now carry – I really hope it’s better than this one was (for the sake of OCZ customers), although I’m not willing to find out for myself.