Introduction

Today's computers get ever faster. Newer CPU's come in up and over 3GHz. Video cards are now running 500Mhz core and over 1GHz DDR memory speeds. Hard drives increase in size and rev speeds, two or more optical drives come into the system, and fans are all put into the mix to keep it cool. Sounds like a good rig, right? Yes but with the wrong power supply, you can simply find yourself up the creek, without a paddle, so to speak.

The power supply unit or PSU as it is known is one of and if not the most overlooked parts of the PC. The power supply provides voltage to all devices inside the case and if you don't have a powerful enough, or good enough quality PSU, you can start experiencing random resets, PC crashing and even in some cases, the entire system dying from over voltage and insufficient voltage regulation - basically a nightmare scenario, so it's crucial you choose the right PSU for your needs.

Today we put six PSU's up against each other from OCZ, Thermaltake, Vantec and Coolermaster in varying sizes and features. We'll check out the appearance and features of each PSU and then put them up against each other and measure the type of minimum and maximum voltages each is able to deliver with a standard system and then an overclocked system based around an Intel Pentium 4 Prescott processor which is one of the most power hungry processors currently on the market.

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