OCZ Fatal1ty Series 1000-watt Power Supply Review

OCZ brings a modder's touch to a mass produced power supply by offering the first power supply to come with individually sleeved wires.

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Updated
Manufacturer: OCZ Technology
6 minutes & 55 seconds read time

Introduction and Specifications, Availability and Pricing

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It's easy to see from an outside perspective that the power supply market has gotten a bit stale. Once a company comes out with a nice feature the same feature shows up in just about every offering on the market.

Lately we've seen a big push for more efficiency and with it came several 80Plus Gold and Platinum rated units. Not much has really evolved since then so the door has been left open for the next rash of features that will soon be copied by everyone else.

Anyone that has been around long enough in the industry will know that many of today's mainstream products were once driven by the modding community. Windowed cases, LED fans, water cooling and more. Power supplies have seen the same thing. Modular cables were inspired by modders who would de-solder extra cables from their power supplies to clean up the case. Cable sleeving came around from the same group. The latest craze has been custom sleeving that involves sleeving each individual wire of the cable. It provides an extra level of detail that helps the computer stand out amongst the rest as well as easing the routing of cables.

It has become so popular that OCZ has decided to bring the feature mainstream with the 1000W Fatal1ty Series power supply. All of the cables are individually sleeved, including the natively wired cables. This is the first unit that we've seen on the market to offer this feature. They've added this to a unit that looks very promising on paper for both gamers and enthusiasts alike, OCZ could have a very hot seller on their hands if it performs well.

Specifications, Availability and Pricing

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The OCZ 1000W Fatal1ty Series power supply utilizes a single 12V rail design to deliver a majority of the power for the unit; 83A to be precise. Both the 3.3V and 5V minor rails are capable of 25A each with a combined maximum output of 150W. The 5VSB is rated for 4A and is the first unit that we have seen to be rated this high. Maximum combined output of the OCZ 1000W Fatal1ty Series is 1000 watts.

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OCZ isn't holding anything back with the OCZ 1000W Fatal1ty Series and covers absolutely everything that we look for in a power supply. It offers a full protection suite including OTP. The power supply has both native and modular cabling, all of which is fully sleeved and secured with heat shrink tubing to prevent it from sliding around on the cables. The OCZ 1000W Fatal1ty Series power supply is also rated for 100% continuous output at 50C.

The OCZ 1000W Fatal1ty Series ships with an MSRP of $239.99 and prices vary quite a bit online. NCIX came in with the lowest price this time around as they offer the unit for $199.99 after $20 MIR and free shipping. Considering it can easily cost $50 to sleeve cables yourself, this makes the price seem fairly competitive if you were to buy a similar unit and sleeve it yourself. OCZ backs the unit with a five year warranty.

The Packaging

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OCZ has wasted no time plastering Wendel's face all over the box and is using the Fatal1ty brand to the full extent here.

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The back of the box yields a list of features, some technical specs and the I/O specs for the unit.

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No useful information on the top of the box.

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The bottom is almost the same except for a few logos are changed.

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One side of the box gives an excellent cable and connector availability list.

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The other side doesn't give us much, but it does give a decent shot of the unit with the red LED fan.

Inside the Box

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OCZ does a very good job of making sure the power supply is well protected.

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The I/O specification label can be found on the top of the unit.

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One side of the power supply displays the OCZ and Fatal1ty logos, as well as the wattage and a watermark of Fatal1ty's face.

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The other side is inverted just as it should be. Taken directly from OCZ's website, we find that they say "...the Fatal1ty Series eliminates unnecessary wire clutter for a cleaner overall presentation..."

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The back has your standard honeycomb mesh vent with AC input and on/off rocker switch.

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OCZ offers a total of 10 modular connections which should be more than enough to make full use of the available 1000 watts.

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Moving to the bottom we find a standard 140mm LED fan with wire grill that provides the airflow to keep the power supply cool. The light emitted from the fan is very bright and casts a red glow on everything around it, including your case and room.

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Here is our first shot of all the modular cables and a hint of the sleeving.

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A close look at the sleeving on the individual cables and you'll swear that these were done by a professional modder and that this isn't an off the shelf unit.

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Rounding out the contents of the box are the user manual, AC input cord, a bunch of zip-ties and mounting screws. Unfortunately there aren't any Velcro cable ties included.

Cabling Arrangement and A Look Inside

Cabling Arrangement

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OCZ has done a great job with the cabling arrangement for the 1000-watt Fatal1ty Series power supply. The unit comes with the 20+4 pin Main, one ATX 4+4 and two 8-pin PCI-E connectors natively wired to the unit. Ten modular cables offer the other four PCI-E connectors, twelve SATA connectors and eight Molex connectors. Two Molex to FDD adapters are also included and ensure that you'll be able power just about anything.

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Rail distribution is as simple as it gets with a single 12V rail.

A Look Inside

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Opening up the power supply, we find a fair amount of passive cooling to keep temperatures in check. Also note that the natively wired cables are sleeved all the way back to the PCB and don't just stop as soon as they enter the power supply.

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A pair of Japanese made Nippon Chemi-con capacitors adorns the primary side of the power supply.

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Nippon Chemi-Con capacitors can be found on the secondary side of the PSU as well.

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OCZ chose the Ong Hua HA1425H12B-Z 140mm fan to provide the active cooling for the power supply.

Test Results and Final Thoughts

Test Results

Our load tests utilize a couple of FAST ATE active load testers and a variety of other equipment such as an oscilloscope, power conditioner, temperature probe and a power consumption meter. You can read more about our standard testing approach here.

The tests performed are based around six conceivable setups that are out there and progressively load down the PSU up to the power supply's limits or 1000W, whichever comes first. Since our test equipment's limits are equal to that of the OCZ 1000W Fatal1ty Series PSU, we can test it to the maximum.

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The above tests represent typical loads that we have measured from various systems and are meant to give a rough idea of where your computer might fall in line with our tests. Please keep in mind that each system is different and actual loads can vary greatly even with similar hardware.

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Let's start by taking a look at the voltages to see how well this unit did during testing. Starting with the 12V rail, we see 1% regulation from with a total drop of .15V from start to finish. The 5V rail stayed within 2% voltage regulation and displayed a total drop of .09V. Moving towards the 3.3V rail, we see that regulation was again within 2% with a total voltage drop of .06V.

DC output quality was excellent from start to finish. Starting out, we were barely able to see a ripple on the scope during Test 1 where we measured noise at a very low 7mV peak to peak. This steadily increased as the loads also increased. By the time we had reached around 50% load, the unit ripple had crept up to 14mV. Under Test 6, we saw that the noise on the 12V rail had crept up to 23mV.

The OCZ 1000W Fatal1ty Series PSU is rated for 80Plus Gold efficiency. This means that the power supply must perform at 87%/90%/87% efficiency at 20%/50%/100% loads respectively. As you can see, the 1000W Fatal1ty Series had no trouble achieving this while on our test bench.

Final Thoughts

OCZ has done an amazing job by bringing the 1000-watt Fatal1ty Series power supply to the market. Strictly from a performance standpoint, the power supply is an excellent unit. This is the first unit we have seen in a very long time that managed to achieve 1% voltage regulation on any rail and it was very close to achieving it on the 5V rail as well. DC output quality is among the best that we have ever seen and couldn't be any better.

Topping it all off, efficiency is right where it should be for an 80Plus Gold power supply. If OCZ had managed to pull all this off with Platinum efficiency, this could have easily been one of the best units we've seen (and probably will see) all year.

Of course, the most important thing to talk about in this unit is the inclusion of individually sleeved cables. Sometimes it takes a bit of risk and for someone it say, "let's just do it." OCZ has managed to set itself apart from the competition with features this time doing just that and while it may be a bit risky, we feel that it is something you are going to start seeing quite a bit more of now that someone has taken the first step to bring this mainstream.

As with all things new, trendy and cool, it comes with a bit of a price premium. Even at the price of $199.99 after rebate, the unit is somewhat pricey compared to the competition, but also represents a very fair deal if you were to compare the price of a power supply with similar performance and the cost sleeving the cables yourself. This route saves you the hassle and the time as well.

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